


Are You Going to Write Your Report About Me?

by Magnetic_Stars



Category: Gotham (TV), Gotham - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Arkham Asylum, Choking, Confrontation, Crime, Emotional Abuse, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Frustration, GCPD, Gore description, Gotham, Guns, Kinda AU, Manipulation, Mentions of Murder, Mood Swings, Obsessive Behavior, Stalking, Temperament, Tension, Threatening, mental health, season 4, slight physical abuse, slight slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2020-03-17 11:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18964267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetic_Stars/pseuds/Magnetic_Stars
Summary: Outraged, Jerome Valeska pays an unexpected visit to a student with wet hair and a quizzical cat.





	1. Chapter 1

As far as Saturday nights go, tonight is an especially lazy one. I peer out of my apartment window and gaze at the city streets of Gotham with Winifred, my five-year-old tabby cat. Brilliant traffic lights flash intensely while the loud chatter of city folk and their shenanigans can be heard all the way up on the sixth floor of my apartment building. Even after I close the window, I can still hear the buzzing outside. Gotham never rests. It’s always alive and kicking, even during the darkest hours of the night.

Winifred throws me a disappointed look before trying to nudge open the window again with her paw. I chuckle at her feeble attempt and make sure to secure the window. She glares at me in a way that tells me she knows what I’m doing and hates me for it. I kiss the top of her head and hope she’ll forgive me.

I turn back to the canvas I have propped up on my coffee table. It’s an oil painting of Gotham’s skyscrapers and street lights, but it’s only half finished. Half-finished or not, it already highlights all my mistakes. I cringe when I analyse it and contemplate throwing it out and erasing its existence. It’s horrible. The shading is off, the sky is too blurry, and the blazing lights shoot stringy beams rather than an explosion of dramatic colors. I hate it, and looking at it is beginning to make me sad.

Annoyed, I get up to retrieve my notebook. I’ve been working on and off on this report all day whenever inspiration strikes. I think back to the class trip we took to Arkham Asylum yesterday. Had I known that criminology class would take up so much of my time, I probably wouldn’t have picked it as my elective this semester. The professor insisted that it would be a great source of primary research to go over to Arkham and have one-on-one interview sessions with inmates of our choice.

I grimace at the memory of it all. Security checks were a hassle, the prison halls smelled of ripe sewage, and the inmates made the loudest ruckus that would put kindergarten children to shame. Prison guards lined up around fifteen prisoners in a secluded cell behind some thick metal bars for us to choose from. I’d done my research, I recognized half of the prisoners standing before us and knew my pick immediately.

The main attraction was, by far, Jerome Valeska. He stood pompously in the middle of the line, feet spread apart, pelvis thrust forward, hands behind his back, and an eerie, secretive smile on his mangled face. I can still see him vividly, and it gives me a queasy feeling in my stomach. Every student requested for an interview with him and began writing down their names in order to take turns. Valeska’s grin widened with every point of a student’s finger towards him. He threw occasional conceited glances at the inmates standing beside him on either side; they didn’t mind him any attention nor did they seem to care.

I was the last student to give my pick. The guard holding the notepad reached me and asked: “You want the clown, too?”

He even had his pen next to Valeska’s name, prepared to circle it as though he didn’t need to hear my answer.

“No,” I said, making his eyes snap at me. “I’d like to speak with Oswald Cobblepot.”

The guard frowned. “Who?”

I pointed to the short, disheveled-looking man at the end of the line. Cobblepot, standing awkwardly with a hunched back, straightened up and looked at me, surprised. I don’t think he expected anyone would want to sit with him, but I’d read about him and felt more interested to get to know him than anyone else.

For some strange reason, my eyes drifted to Jerome Valeska again. At first, his head was twisted towards Cobblepot, an odd expression playing across his face. Then, he whipped his head to glare at me. There was fire in his eyes and the permanent smile on his face turned dark and grim. Anger is not the word to describe his expression. It was more bitter than that. I could detect some mild confusion from him and maybe even a pinch of disbelief, too. But what was plain and obvious to my eyes was that I’d offended him in some way. I could tell by the set of his jaw and the tightness around his eyes. He wasn’t happy; as though my request for a different inmate tipped his scale filled of an entire cue of students lining up for him like he was some celebrity.

I broke the stare and decided not to look at him again. Pretending he wasn’t there helped, except that I only felt the pressure of his eyes leave me when I got called into the interrogation room first for my interview.

Now, looking down at all the notes I’ve taken from Cobblepot, I don’t regret my decision. He’s given me some very useful information, some true insight on who he is as a person and how he became a prisoner at Arkham. I’m flabbergasted when I think back to how shy he seemed, how softly-spoken he was. Also, up close, his eyes were terribly sad and drained, like there was no moisture left in them. Regardless, he’s still a criminal, but those eyes spoke otherwise to me, unlike the horrible fiery eyes of a certain ginger psychopath. If eyes could kill, I imagine Valeska’s would, effortlessly. I can still see them, wide and glaring.

I shiver and shut the notebook, flinging it onto the coffee table next to my disgraced canvas before making a dash for the bathroom. I need to forget about Arkham and its inmates for a while. No more smelly hallways, no more watchful eyes, and no more talk or thought of this stupid report. I have all day tomorrow to worry about it.

It’s just after twelve a.m., and without any consideration at all, I decide that I deserve a long bath to wash away my stress.

While the water fills the tub, I throw in all sorts of bath salts and soapy bubbles. Waiting for the water to take effect, I choose an audio book to listen to and adjust the volume. Everything is perfect, the scented soap, the calm reading-voice of the author, and the warmth that subdues the bathroom as it fills with steam.

I believe I probably soak for a whole hour, maybe more. I don’t leave until the water begins to cool and my fingertips resemble beachy shorelines. I dress into my warmest pajamas and drape a large towel around my shoulder to allow my wet hair to tumble down freely. I feel perfectly content, warm, clean, fresh, and every other good feeling in the world. Nothing like a lazy Saturday night to pamper yourself until you float with glee.

Steam spews out when I open the bathroom door and the scent of my lavender shampoo spreads throughout the entire flat. Having never been a fan of drying my hair, I decide to prepare a small meal while I wait for it to air-dry before bed. As I make my way to my small kitchen, I halt. My apartment is cold, and I’m positive that I have the heater on.

“Winnifred,” I curse under my breath. That damned cat will get into all sorts of mischief. She probably messed with the heater’s settings.

I pivot back into the living room and come to yet another screeching stop. My window is wide open, and the drapes are flowing freely against the cool breeze. I don’t approach it immediately, feeling a sudden nervousness shooting through my body.

Surely Winnifred couldn’t have done that... Am I actually that careless to leave my window unlocked?

Hesitantly, I go over slowly and slide the window down, making sure to lock it tightly. Peering at the busy roads outside, all seems normal in the dark city of Gotham. I sigh quietly and draw the drapes in as well.

Trying to forget the slight fright, I return to my previous task and start warming up some milk for my oatmeal. Mindlessly, I hum under my breath while I slice a ripe banana, until I hear something get knocked over. It's coming from my bedroom. I roll my eyes before dropping them to my cutting board again.

“Winnifred! What on earth are you up to in there? Don’t make me come and find you!”

The sudden chuckle that erupts from somewhere within my apartment causes the hairs at the back of my neck to stand. It’s potent, and sharp, and getting louder by the second. Abruptly, I whip my head up and stare straight into the fiery eyes of Jerome Valeska, standing just outside my room. A vigorous gasp escapes me while I feel my heart plummet to my stomach like a hot piece of coal. I stare back as hard as I can to try to chase away this hallucination, but the image of him never wavers. He’s still dressed in Arkham’s striped prison clothes, giving me the uncanny impression that he’s escaped within twenty-four hours since I’d last seen him.

Is it on the news and I’m unaware? Am I honestly that ignorant? He can’t be real. He can’t be. It’s not possible.

“Boo,” he says, voice low and gravely. “Found you first.” His scarred face breaks into a grotesque grin before he slowly begins sauntering towards me.

Anxiously, my eyes dart towards the knife rack, wondering if I have enough time to reach it. A condescending tutting distracts me from that thought.

“Now, now. Wouldn’t be very smart.”

I look around frantically for my cell phone. It’s not on my person, and it’s not anywhere within view. Where the hell… What perfect timing to lose something you’re so dependent on.

Shakily, I lift the heavy pot of milk up and aim it at him with both hands.

“Stop!” I bark, sounding breathless and foreign to my own ears. “Don’t come any closer!”

He stops moving mid-step, but I’d be stupid to think it’s because he feels threatened. His head tilts slowly while an eyebrow curiously raises.

“I-It’s hot milk. Scalding milk, actually,” I say, trying to sound brave and not at all idiotic. “I’ll throw it at you. I’ll burn you. Just... just stand there where you are.”

A second brow follows the first, and the smile that comes back to his face is amused. He straightens slightly and lifts his gloved hands up in surrender. That should’ve been somewhat comforting if not for the bone-chilling smile.

“My deepest apologies,” he says, voice lilting and dripping with a mocking undertone. “I didn’t realize you were armed with such a fearsome weapon. Fortunately for me, however, I came prepared.” Swiftly, he reveals a small gun he’s had hidden in his back pocket.

I bristle, but I don’t lower the pot.

“Do us both a favor and put the pot down,” he says amiably, but I know that he means to give me a direct order. His hand is still clutching the gun.

My instinct is torn between doing as he says and defying him at the same time. The pot is heavy, my fingers are turning blue from how tightly I’m gripping the handle, but to put it down would make me defenseless.

I don’t move a muscle, and I catch his eye twitching in mild annoyance.

“Please,” he adds patiently, though he says it through gritted teeth.

“What do you want?” I finally manage to utter.

He rolls his eyes and lifts the gun up to aim at my shoulder. “I asked you, very politely, to lower your scalding milk. I’m a generous guy, so I’ll give you three extra seconds before I shoot. One... Two...”

I drop, rather than lower, the pot. Milk splashes around the rim and I jump back out of harm’s way. My hands feel sore and clammy as the blood rushes to my fingertips. When I look up to stare at him, his mouth morphs into a greasy smile, full of arrogance and triumph.

“See! That wasn’t so hard, was it? What’re you making there anyway?”

I don’t respond, feeling unbelievably exposed and tense. My hands ball up at my sides, nails digging mercilessly into the tender skin of my palms. I don’t care; I hardly notice the pain at all. At this moment, all I’m thinking about is whether or not I can throw a decent punch if it comes to it. _Oh, God, I really hope…_

He sneers. “You wouldn’t want me to ask again.”

“Oatmeal,” I squeak, pinching myself in the thigh.

He taps a finger to his chin in consideration. “Not my favorite, but I’ll share it with you. I’m sure you don’t mind. Haven’t eaten in a day and I’m starting to feel fuzzy. Go ahead, keep at it, but no funny business or else I’ll pull the trigger,” he says, lifting a brow, daring me to protest.

My hands are trembling when I return the pot over the stove and start stirring the milk again. I can feel a sob stuck in my throat but I refuse to let it out. I breathe deeply and slowly, trying to calm my nerves and swallow that burning cry.

“Aww, come on now,” he chides sardonically. “No need to pull a long face. I have no intention of killing ya. I just wanna have a nice long chat. A lot’s been going on in here,” he briefly pokes a finger to his head. “And it’s been driving me up… the… wall.” His voice dangerously drops along with his slimy smile.

I swallow thickly and audibly hear the ‘ _gulp_ ’ I make, praying that he hasn’t heard it too. I feel the desperate need to fling some ceramic plates at him, but he’s got a gun. I also want to scream for my neighbor, but this guy’s got a damn _gun_. I try to think fast, to figure out how I might outsmart him… this psychotic murderer who has supposedly killed his own mother at just eighteen.

The gun is still pointed at me. As hard as I try to squeeze my brain for a plan, I’m unable to coherently think, not while knowing that what could inevitably end my life is staring at me in the face.

“If I can’t have a weapon then you shouldn’t either,” I blurt, not entirely aware I’ve said it out loud. I almost pat myself on the back for saying it without my voice cracking.

He emits a quiet cackle. “Is that an ultimatum?”

“No. If you don’t want to kill me like you said- “

A very low growl rumbles deeply within his chest. “I said I have no _intention_ of killing you. It’s a completely different thing, and you should be paying more attention.”

“Kind of hard to do when you’ve got a gun pointed at you. I’ll talk. I’ll have a chat with you, but you won’t get a single word out of me if you keep that thing on me. And if you shoot, I won’t be of much use to you if I’m dead.” I’m sweating so much I might as well be sitting in a sauna. My vision has blurred, thanks to the sweat dripping into my eyes, but I refuse to wipe it away while he’s staring at me.  

Though his face looks a bit smudged to me, I cannot mistake the smarmy grin that gradually unfolds. “Alright, my little milk maiden. You’ve convinced me. No more guns pointed at you.”

He suddenly snaps his head down and begins rhythmically clicking his tongue. Blinking away the sweat, I peer over the kitchen counter and I see Winnifred _actually_ approaching his beckoning hand with an extended neck to be petted. Before I know it, he’s scooping her up swiftly with one hand, cradling her to his chest. In some dystopian world, the embrace between the young man and a cat might’ve conveyed a somewhat sweet and loving picture, but when I distinguish the click of the gun against Winnifred’s head, I snap.

“Don’t hurt her!”

He gives an indifferent shrug of his shoulder. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Look at this face,” he says gripping Winnifred’s tiny face with one big hand. “It’s too cute I could just squish it like a grape. We’ve become such good friends while we waited for you to finish your ridiculously long bath. So far, she’s been a better hostess than you,” he says, releasing a blithe sort of giggle. “I’ll release her. Just tell me all I want to know and tell me honestly. I can’t stand a dirty liar.”

“Alright, alright,” I say, scowling at him. “What do you want to know?”

“You picked the Penguin,” he starts conversationally.

I blink, my stirring hand stills. “You mean Oswald- “

“Of course I mean that beaked-nose, insipid birdbrain!” he roars suddenly. His tone depicts that he’s gravely furious, but the persistent smile on his face throws me off completely. I don’t know how to react to him, calmly, or defensively.

Logically, I choose neither of those reasonable reactions and instead opt for some good ol’ dumbfounded confusion.

“And you’re angry because?”

He fumes, biting the inside of his cheeks. Slowly, he begins walking towards me again. “Do you know who I am? What I’ve done?”

 _Don’t gulp, don’t gulp_ , _don’t gulp_ , I chant repeatedly. 

Slowly, I nod. “You’re Jerome Valeska. I know exactly who you are and what you’ve done.”

He stops right in front of me, nose flaring with anger. The only thing separating him from me is the kitchen counter between us. Instantly, I have a new form of safety measure.

“Now that’s funny,” he says quietly.

For a split second, I catch the slight tremor of his lips, as though he’s unsure to smile. He settles for a lame simper, but the rest of his expression is completely impassive. There’s no furrowing between his brows, no tightness around the eyes, no popping muscles in his jaw or throat. I can only describe this look as vaguely thoughtful, like he’s assessing something very privately in his head, and suddenly this expression of his irks me. He’s worse when he’s quiet. Mindlessly, I begin to wonder what might happen if I decide at this very second to spit at his face.

I decide to break the deafening silence. “Forgive me, but how is me knowing who you are _funny_? Everyone in Gotham knows you. Even the children do.”

The mirth returns to his eyes. “You flatter me, my dear,” he says, before leaning over the counter, getting close enough for me to get a whiff of the pungent, salty sweat clinging to his clothes. “Keep it up and I might end up liking you.”

I try not to shudder, but I know that he catches the revolted pinch of my face. It makes his grin grow bigger.

Up close, I clearly see the reconstruction of his face. The scar tissue that frames the border looks coarse, angry, and horribly stretched. The elastic smile that carves through his cheeks is abnormally wide and gruesome. I can’t imagine what he might look like with a normal face; perhaps this man was never meant to look normal. But then, I notice something that makes him seem a little more human to me. Traces of tiny, boyish freckles pepper his skin. They’re faint, and perhaps even disturbed by the harsh scars, but the more I look for them, the more I find them. They scatter across the tip of his nose, his eyelids, the shell of his ears, even the length of his neck. I follow the trail and stop when they disappear past the collar of his buttoned shirt.

A deep chuckle jerks me out of my reverie.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that staring is rude?” he says, leering at me.

“Breaking into somebody’s house isn’t exactly civil.”

He releases a throaty cackle. “Believe me, it’s my least serious crime.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes and instead peer over my shoulder, looking for the jar of oats I keep over the fridge.

“Hey, hey. I said no funny business,” he says, warningly.

“Can’t make any oatmeal without oats, unless you want to settle for some boiling milk.”

“Ah,” he says, smiling amiably. “Allow me.”

Still holding Winnifred, he lowers the gun. A thousand thoughts race through my mind, but I don’t act on any of them. He throws me a hard look, a wordless threat, and I end up standing perfectly still. He comes over to my side of the kitchen and retrieves the jar with ease. Setting it down next to me, he hops onto the counter and places Winnifred in his lap. The gun is pressed against her head again, but his free hand continues to soothe her mane. When I hear her purr, I glower at her. I’m here trying to seem convincingly calm to keep her alive while she’s melting all over this psycho as though I never give her any attention. What a bitch. 

He’s too close to me now. If I reach out just a bit, I’d graze the fabric of his uniform. He starts to swing his legs leisurely while he watches me watch him. When I fail to do anything about the oats he oh-so kindly brought to me, he sighs.

“You’re not thinking of spilling any hot liquid on me while I’m up here, are you? ‘Cause that wouldn’t be a good idea.” He grips the back of Winnifred’s neck and I feel a tightness in my chest. Quickly, I avert my eyes back to the task at hand.

I add a decent portion of oats into the boiling milk and clear my throat. “You were saying something about how me knowing you is a funny thing, but you don’t even know me.”

He hums lowly. “Who says I don’t?”

I deadpan, eyeing him from the corner of my eye. “You don’t.”

“Girls like to talk,” he says casually, scratching the underside of Winnifred’s chin and watching her beg for more. “When you tell them just the right thing, they’ll sing to you. Any… tune… you… want…” he breaks off into a short laugh. “You don’t have very loyal classmates.”

“Wait,” I say, trying to work my head around what he’d just said. “You mean… those girls who interviewed you…”

“They sang like nightingales. Each more talented than the next!”

“No, no. Wait. You’re telling me those girls told you-“

“Everything! Pay attention!” he suddenly bellows, eyes glaring. “I know your name, your age, where you live, what you study, where you’re from, who your buddies are. You’re even slower than the GCPD! Now that’s disappointing.”

An unfathomable amount of stress suddenly slaps me in the face. I run a hand through my wet hair and try to maintain some composure.

“I’m extremely confused. You break into my home, raise a gun at me and my cat, demand that I talk to you, but you’re still not telling me what you want!”

“Tell me why you would choose to speak with whiny o’l Pengy when you already knew who I was, _Ann-ah_.” He says my name like he’s savoring it. It’s acidic to my own ears.

My eyes lock with his and I focus on them a bit. They’re not that special up close. They come aflame when he’s angry, when his orange eyebrows knit together in a deep scowl, but his eyes are, in fact, an incredibly dull shade of green. What accentuates their paleness are the dark circles that envelope them. I can’t decide whether they're the result of numerous facial procedures, lack of sleep, or a good amount of eye punches from all whom he’s encountered. I’m hoping for the latter.

“You’re trying my patience,” he cautions gruffly. 

It dawns on me what this is all about, and I force myself to stifle a knowing smirk. This man might have some unpredictable antics and mood swings, but his ‘my-horse-is-bigger-than-your-horse’ complex is unbelievably conspicuous.

“I think Cobblepot is an interesting man,” I answer vaguely, aware of the tick that pops in his cheek.

His head tilts curiously. “Hmm. Keep going.”

I give a nonchalant shrug. “There’s nothing more, really. I’d read some articles about him, his life in Gotham, how he fought his way up the food chain, his sneaky strategies, his crimes and how he feels about them... I found him admirable in a way and I wanted to interview him, that’s all.”

Jerome bawls out a violent laugh that shakes his entire form. It startles Winnifred, causing her to wriggle in his grip and hiss when he tightens his hold. She ends up lashing her claws at him and I finally feel like a proud mother. He’s laughing too hard to keep her there any longer, allowing her to escape. I sigh with relief, but that feeling is short-lived. He pushes himself off the counter and comes to stand right by my side. I feel the gun press against my waist and instantly I freeze.

“Wow,” he says, breathless. “That was good. Never thought I’d hear anyone describe the little bird as ‘ _admirable_ ’. You clearly aren’t that smart.”

I glare at him. “You said no more guns pointed at me.”

He nods solemnly. “I say a lotta things, and I usually mean them. It just so happens your Winston violated our treaty,” he says, pulling up a sleeve and exhibiting the three clear cat scratches there. Little droplets of blood ooze out, but the cuts aren't deep enough to really sting. I humph, disappointed.

“Okay. I told you what you wanted to know, may you please leave my apartment now?”

He lets out a child-like giggle, full of innocence and glee. “No. I’m not done yet and I haven’t even had my dinner. Also, I’ve brought you a gift.”

 _Oh God,_ I think, _it’s a dead thing. He’s brought me a dead thing._

“Thanks,” I blurt, nearly choking on the word. “But I don’t have anything for you in return. So, keep your gift and we’ll call it even.”

The grin that settles on his face makes me want to take another bath. It’s naked, like he sees right through me and he seems disturbingly delighted by my nervousness.

“Not that kind of gift,” he says quietly. “If you don’t accept it, it’ll make me very sad. I’m not nice when I get sad.” The gun at my side nudges me and I squirm. “Wouldn’t want you to see that side of me, not when I’ve been trying so hard to make a good first impression here.”

“Alright. Okay. Fine,” I grit, “Where is this gift then?”  

I don’t believe it when he takes a step back and spreads his arms wide. I feel a bit more comfortable with the extra distance between us. Also, the absence of the gun allows me to finally unclench my muscles. I didn’t even realize they were clenched in the first place.

“Ta-da!” he blares, arms still outstretched.

I stare at him. “You… are the gift?”

“I can see you’re pleasantly surprised.”

“Confused, actually.”

He gives an exasperated eye-roll. “Yeah, well, profound confusion does seem to run in your blood. You’re burning our dinner, Anna. Do you mind plating it so that I don’t resolve to eating your Winston?”

I shoot him a dry look and he revels in it. I could kick him where I know it’ll hurt and it still wouldn’t make me feel any better.

I retrieve two bowls while he watches me closely. I fill them both to the brim and nudge one of them towards him.

He tsks. “Banana slices.”

I mumble under my breath and dump of few slices into his bowl and glare at him, waiting to hear any other command. He grins and bows his head to me in mock chivalry. Picking up his bowl, he gestures for me to do the same with a flick of his gun.

“Show me into your cosy living room. I’ll explain my gift in a way that might minimize any further confusion from you.”

He lets me lead, but the gun is still pressed against my back. I can feel the cold metal through my pajama top.

“I understand that you requested to interview dear Mr Cobble-butt under the false pretense that he’s this great man all mighty. I’m sorry you are a poor judge of character,” he says when I settle onto my plush sofa. To my dismay, he sits down next to me, balancing his bowl on a propped knee. He regards my unfinished painting on the coffee table with a vague quirk of his brow but quickly directs his attention back to me. “So, because I like you, I am now offering you an interview with yours truly to rectify your mistake. No need to thank me, it’s what I do. I help those in need.”

I’m unable to hold the soft laugh that spills past my lips. It was risky to let it slip out, but this man is absolutely ridiculous. “I appreciate your offer, but I don’t need a second interview. What I got from Oswald Cobblepot was more than enough.”

“More than enough,” he snorts, shifting in his seat in order to face me fully. “ _Gotham is my home, it’s always been my home. I don’t really want to hurt people, I’m just trying to survive, to make it to the top, to be a somebody. I did it to make my mother proud, she was the only person to ever love poor, pathetic, little ol’ me_ ,” Jerome horrifically recites a few of Oswald’s words to me, mockingly sobbing through the entire thing. He makes a show of wiping some fake tears before grinning at me maliciously. “I gotta be honest, I don’t see what’s so _admirable_ about the little turd. Sounds like a real cry-baby to me.”

My eyes widen and flash to my opened notes, strewn across the table. “You… you went through my stuff.”

“Duh. Who takes a bath for that long? I got bored, what was I supposed to do?” He stares down at his bowl for a moment and purses his lips. “Say, now. Did you by any chance poison our food?”

_Oh, for God’s sake._

“You watched me cook the whole thing. As clever as that might have been, no, I didn’t poison anything.”

“Aww,” he coos, hand coming up to rest against his heart. “That’s very kind. To show my gratitude, I want you to enjoy the first bite. Go ahead, really dig in.”

I stare at him for a moment. Never thought this guy might be so paranoid of getting hurt or feeling vulnerable. So far, he’s done nothing but depict to me what a careless, impulsive nut-job he is, yet he’s still clutching the gun. He’s wary of me. _Me_ , a broke college student with wet hair, no weapon, no phone, a cat for a roommate, and a sad oatmeal in hand. He’s just watching me, carefully, but certainly not patiently. I lift a spoonful of oatmeal and blow at the mist before tasting it. It sucks, I’ve overcooked it, but I force myself to chew slowly.

Seemingly satisfied, he relaxes more into his seat. He sets the gun down a good measure away from me and throws me a hard look. He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t have to. The daring look he gives me is warning enough for me to not try anything stupid. He takes a spoonful of steamy oatmeal and plunges it into his mouth without waiting for it to cool or so much as blowing at it first. A resonating groan rumbles out of him before he starts shoveling in more and more food.

Put off, I watch him with transfixed fascination. He doesn’t look so intimidating when he eats. All façades melt away and suddenly he looks younger, or perhaps he’s looking more his actual age. The scars make it hard to decipher, but I figure that he’s not much older than I am. He can’t be older than twenty-five.

_So young and already so screwed up._

Soon, he’s scraping the bottom of the bowl and licking the spoon clean, like he’s lost all sense in the world. I’m not entirely sure he’s had any to begin with.

Wordlessly, I hold out my untouched dinner to him. I don’t know why I do it, but I do so readily without any thought at all.

When he notices my offering, he grins, but it’s an uncertain one. It never reaches his eyes. I can tell he’s surprised and puzzled and I drink up that image because I’m not sure if I’ll ever see it again. He doesn’t take the bowl from me right away.

“I did say we were _sharing_ your dinner, and I do try to be a man of my word.”

I shrug. “The display of you attacking your food like that made me lose my appetite completely.”

It takes a second for the uncertainty to melt away. His grin is more vibrant now as he reaches for my offering and starts devouring that as well.

“You are a gracious host after all. Y’know, back during my circus days, this peasant food was all my mom ever made me eat before bed. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t make it any better, but mom used to serve it cold and plain, until she stopped bothering to make sure I’ve eaten anything at all. She wasn’t a very nice lady. I ended up having to steal candy bars and crackers from the popcorn stands at night so I wouldn’t have to sleep on an empty stomach. I was five.”

He doesn’t look up from his food, but he gives an almost subliminal smile. It’s strangely soft, filled with an emotion I can’t interpret. I don’t think he’s aware of it.

“Used to steal for my brother, too,” he continues, unfazed. “He wasn’t so thankful. He was afraid of the bogeyman,” he laughs, shaking his head. “Thought the bogeyman would come out at night and bite off his toes for being such a naughty little boy. He didn’t even steal the damn food! Just stuffed himself with it and I let him because he was my brother. He’s not a very nice fella now either.”

“Excuse me,” I interrupt. “Are you giving me your life story?”

He throws me a flat look. “Obviously, and you should be taking notes, this is good stuff. Haven’t said any of this to your peers. You’re likely to stand out.”

“With all due respect- “

“Really?”

“- but I told you I don’t need to conduct a second interview.”

“Anna, Anna, Anna,” he sighs, feigning tiredness. “I’m going out of my way to do this for you. Cobblepot is pathetic, whiny, depressed, short-sighted, predictable, and a seriously bad-dresser. I think its unfair that you do lousy on your paper because you couldn’t tactfully pick your test subject. I’m doing a good deed here. Can’t a guy be selfless for once?”

“Why’re you jealous of him?”

The gloved-hand that shoots out and wraps around my neck moves before I can see it. My head is brutally slammed against the wall and a hot white pain blinds my vision. I don’t see him moving in any closer, but I feel his mouth against my ear, warm and uncomfortably chapped. There’s something alarmingly primal in his low growl; it sets my adrenaline aflame. One word courses through my veins when I feel him baring his teeth at my ear: **_Danger! Danger! Danger!_**

Then, he’s exhaling deeply. The body pressed against me is no longer rigid, but the hand around my neck never loosens.

“Now why would you go and say a thing like that, hmm, _Ann-ah_?” he murmurs, his voice deep and gravelly. “You hurt my feelings. I thought we were getting along, you and I.” Venom drips with every word he says, and I’m consuming each scorching drop. His fingers tighten and squeeze into my esophagus, causing me to I gasp for air.

I start to claw at his grip, but he pushes my hands away as though they’re merely annoyances to him. I try to kick my legs, but then I feel the cold metal of the gun press into my side again and I remain still. When I try to speak, my words are choked and my throat burns.

“What’s that now? Is that an apology I hear? For the sake of this lovely face, it better be,” he rasps, traces of a new stubble scrapes against my cheek.

With one last, forceful squeeze, his hand loosens and suddenly I’m gulping for air. My vision comes back gradually. I blink away the fluttering polka-dots until the blurry colors in front of me mold into Jerome’s disgruntled face. He’s wearing a tight smile, but his eyes are shooting daggers at me. I groan, feeling the pain in my head intensify.

“Where’s my apology?” he asks, voice unnervingly calm now. “And make it good. You get one chance.”

There’s one way to impress this guy and I think I know how.

Clearing my throat and staring right into his sharp gaze, I compel myself to muster up an ounce of bravery.

“I’m sorry,” I start, voice hoarse, “that you’re such a lame, boring, stick-in-the-mud who can’t handle some serious talk. I thought you were a cool guy. Guess you were right about one thing. I _am_ a poor judge of character.”

He didn’t expect that. His head jerks back and his lips part in mild astonishment. Then, he’s throwing his head back and cackling like a madman, swinging his gun around as though it were a toy. I roll my eyes while he’s not looking. 

“Oh, if only half the people I’d met possessed your wit, my fair milk maiden. They’d probably still be alive,” he says, his grin almost splitting his face.

“Thanks,” I mutter, grimacing as I rub my hand against the back of my head. I feel a sudden tiredness overtake me and I just really wish I could go to sleep.

“Though, a sharp tongue like that _could_ get you killed,” he says, matter-of-factly. “You’re just lucky I’ve got a great sense of humor.”

“Lucky me.”

“For your brave stunt, I’ll answer your question for you. It’s a _good_ question, points for effort.” He adjusts his seat and crosses his legs. I try not to think about how his dirty shoes are ruining my furniture. “I’m not jealous of the little scum, Anna. He’s an insufferable pesky tick who can’t face the world without playing the victim. He tiptoes between dark alleyways, hides behind the shadows of those bigger than him, snivels weakly whenever the time calls for him to defend himself... and you call him _admirable._ Now that’s insulting. He’s there demanding power, wanting to rule Gotham like he’s some kind of king, whereas all I ever asked of the city was a bit of honesty.”

“A bit of honesty.” I state flatly, quirking a brow.

He lifts a wagging finger at me. “I don’t appreciate that tone, my dear. I’m speaking nothing but the truth here. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

I stop myself from scoffing and wait for him to continue.

“Gotham is a disease. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Whereas Cobblepot wants to deceive its people and allow the corruption to fester, I simply want Gotham to live its true identity. This city will never be cleansed, not when its inhabitants desire no change. They pretend to be righteous and ethical, but it’s all one big lousy lie! This is where the crazy come to reside, where cops hold criminal records, where adolescent boys murder their mothers in cold blood and whaddya know? The city keeps them all alive. Why? ‘Cause this city was built by them. The only problem is that most people are too chicken to be themselves and let the crazy out, so they suffer while the rest of us are free. I’m talking about freedom of the mind here, my dear. Nothing’s more blissful than that. Up until I got locked up, I was doing Gotham a  _big… fat… favor.”_

I sit there, shaking with bubbling rage as I grind my teeth achingly. “I don’t believe Gotham is damned to forever be ruled by criminals. I believe that the good will save this city. I love it too much to lose hope over it completely.”

He chuckles merrily. “Oh, I bet.” Bending forward to study my oil painting, he tongue’s his cheek thoughtfully. “I mean… you’re no expert, but I’ve dangled on the side of this building long enough to recognize the view from your window. You paint Gotham in such a pretty light. Either that’s how you see it or how you really wish to see it.”

_Woah, Woah, Woah. Stop._

He climbed up a six storey building, opened and entered through my window… and no one saw? No one even came by to at least check in on me to see if I’m still breathing? He was wearing prison clothes for fuck’s sake! Still is!

I scowl when I realize he’s sniggering at me. “I know what you’re thinking. All those endless questions of ‘how?’ and ‘why?’, they’ll keep you up at night. The same way they kept me up. You’ll never understand them, not until you come to the realization you don’t want to have.”

“What the hell are you talking about.”

“Isn’t it curious how we’ve been friends for almost an hour- “

“We’re not- “

“-and you never once asked me how I got here? How I left Arkham? How I’m armed with a loaded gun? What does that tell you, Anna?”

“That I’m in shock?”

“That’s a valid point, I’ll give you that. But, also, there’s a plausible chance that you simply _accept_ the crazy stuff that happen around you, to you. You don’t see the corruption, or the crimes, or the lies. You paint Gotham with naivety because you’ve conditioned yourself to normalize the problems. In other words, you _are_ the problem, and that’s why you admire a slimy preacher like Cobblepot.”

He wants me to get mad. He’s smirking at me like he knows he’s struck a nerve. I feel my blood curdle under my skin and fill with newly-charged fury and hatred. I cannot give him the satisfaction of watching me seethe. There’s no reason why I should give him any more power over me.

“That’s your opinion,” I say simply.

His smirk never falters. “And what’s yours?”

“I think you’re a terribly bored man with no productive hobbies.”

Jerome laughs joyfully. “I’ve got hobbies, Anna. I consider myself an artist too, y’know. Like yourself, only, better and on a much larger scale. The entire city is my canvas, and you lovely city folk are my brushes.”

I shudder. What a horrible thing to say, but I guess that’s the point.

“You haven’t painted a pretty picture so far either,” I mumble, eyeing the way he’s twirling the gun around between gloved fingers.

“No,” he muses, “I suppose I haven’t. It’s nice to know we have something in common, you and I. Just two passionate artists with a lack for talent and a crave for perfection.”

I frown at him. “I never said I wanted perfection.”

His eyes roll to the back of his head. If they could go further back, I imagine they would. “You can crave something without wanting it.”

“You don’t know me,” I elucidate slowly. “So stop talking like you do.”

“I know you hate your painting.”

For a moment I’m speechless. He’s grinning at me like he knows a secret he’s dying to spill, and it’s making me want to gauge his eye out with his own spoon.

“It’s not even finished yet,” I start.

“That’s beside the point. You’re painting with oils, so I know it doesn’t dry easily. Half the paint is stone dry and only a corner of it is freshly wet. That tells me a lot. Maybe you haven’t had the time to work on this little side-project, or perhaps you’re beginning to lose interest in it, or- “He leans in slowly and I shrink back against the armrest. “-maybe you’re now realizing that whichever way you look at it, there’s no perfect angle for Gotham, and artists always, _always_ , strive towards perfection.”

My chest grows tighter, and I try not to clear my throat too blatantly. “Perfection doesn’t exist anyway.”

His playful smirk grows. “That’s your opinion.”

“What’s yours?” Curse my curiosity.  

“I think you’re a stubborn girl in need of enlightenment.”

I roll my eyes exaggeratedly. “You’re stubborn yourself.”

“You know what they say about great minds. Are you going to write your report about me? You’ll make me the happiest man.”

“I’ll consider it if you leave right now and let me have a decent sleep.”

“What a way to treat your guest. I’ve traveled long and far to see you, Anna. Aren’t you enjoying my company?”

I let out a long exhale and try to choose my words carefully. “Listen, I appreciate your visit and I did as you asked. I had a chat with you, just like you wanted, and I didn’t try causing any sort of trouble. Now you’ve had your dinner and I’m getting really tired, so could you just-”

“Can I paint your face?”

_Excuse me?_

_Say what now?_

I blink. Multiple times. “Wha- “

“Inspiration struck. You’re an artist, you understand. Let me and I’ll leave without ever looking back.”

“No,” I say solidly, glaring at him.

“I’ll let you paint my face,” he tempts, lifting a teasing brow.

“With what? Oil paint? Absolutely not!”

He sighs in disappointment. “I keep hoping you’d learn.”

He fists the front of my shirt and hauls me in closer to him until I feel the heat radiating from his body. Instinctively, my hands fly up and push against his chest, but to no avail. He doesn’t budge. The hard muscles he’s got under there tense under my palms. My fingernails dig into the fabric of his shirt as I grow desperate, trying to gain control in any way. He hisses, but he doesn’t pry my fingers away. I grow distracted when I feel the calm beating of his heart. It’s _too_ calm, and that makes me anxious. He presses his gun under my chin and stares at me tauntingly.

“Can I,” he starts patiently with a derisive smile, “paint your lovely face, please?” The gun digs into my jaw and Jerome’s face inches even closer. He’s greedily drinking in every drop of fear that drowns my eyes, but I never look away from him.

A part of me knows he’s bluffing. He means to scare me, to keep me under his thumb where he wants me, but I know he has no true intention of killing me, just as he said when he first spoke to me, and for some reason I believe him. This man is a mass murderer. If he didn’t want to kill me, he would have at least seriously hurt me by now in some way. I’ve given him enough reason to. 

“Alright,” I finally say. I gently start to push against his chest and he surprisingly lets me. He backs off and lowers the gun. “But under two conditions.”

“Aren’t we the diplomatic negotiators,” he giggles and waves me off. “Fine, fine. You, spoil-sport. Voice your terms.”

“Firstly, you have to keep your word and leave as soon as you’re done. No looking back, and no bothering me ever again.”

He grins maliciously, but an animalistic growl rips from his throat. “You’re breaking my heart, Anna.”

“Do you, or do you not, consent?”

“I can always just do whatever I want, whether you like it or not.”

I nod. “Yes, I know, but you do try to be a man of your word.”

The frown between his brows disappears and the glum grin on his face brightens. “Aren’t you perceptive. In theory, I consent, if only just to humor you, my dear.”

I have no idea what the hell that means, but it wasn’t a brazen ‘no’. I take it.

“As for my second condition,” I continue, “I don’t want to see that gun of yours pointed at me anymore, its presence is beginning to bug me. Keep it away and I’ll be much more obliging to your request.”

He’s amused. His eyes crinkle at the corners and his grin is not big, but it is ridiculously entertained with the way the corners curve. “Is that right? And, tell me, what should I do to you if you misbehave then? Shall I choke the air out of you again? Dangle you from your window, perhaps?”

My gaze on him hardens. “I won’t misbehave, so long as you don’t.”

Jerome snickers giddily, hissing through his teeth as he goes. “I adore your bite! You’ve got yourself a fine deal, missy.” Clicking the safety back on, he shoves the gun into his back pocket. He showcases his empty hands to me and wiggles his fingers. “No weapon. Now kindly pass over that brush.”

“Wait.” I jump from the couch but don’t get far. He catches my wrist and tugs me to a halt.

“Is someone planning on getting themselves in trouble?”

I look down at him, sitting at the edge of the couch. “No. Someone is going to get some paper so that a likely mess may be avoidable.”

He eyes me very intently. There’s no contradicting smile on his face, no concerned frown between his brows. Slowly, almost begrudgingly, he lets me go.

Not wanting him to grow suspicious and come follow me, I quickly head to my bedroom and dig under my bed for a few old magazines. If he’s already been inside my room, I can’t tell. He hasn’t disrupted my tidiness and I don’t think he’s stolen anything. At least, I hope not.

When I re-enter the living-room, he’s right where I’d left him, only he’s looking much grimmer.

He’s a lot more menacing from afar than he is up close. No longer crossing his legs under him, he sits with his knees apart and his hands gripping his thighs. He’s got a bored look on his face, and then I hear him sucking his teeth in irritation. Wordlessly, he pats the seat next to him and I kick myself to go over to him again. ~~~~

I lay some magazines on the table and a few in the small space between us after I sit back down. He immediately scoots in closer to me. When I inhale a full dose of his grimy scent, I grind my teeth. Underneath that dirt and sweat, I can smell _him_. He vaguely smells of hazelnut and sun-baked oak. It’s earthy and manly and I hate-hate- that I can smell him at all.

Soon, he’s opening a new paint tube and the powerful odor of oils and chemicals masks his own. I breathe more easily now, feeling relief wash over me.

“Close your eyes,” he tells me, sounding unnervingly normal. The lack of fire and ice in his voice is obvious to me. I’m not sure why, but I think its because he’s trying to concentrate.

I don’t argue. Closing my eyes, I wait for the stroke of the brush against my face.

“You know,” I start, “this stuff is really hard to take off.”

“Then we best make sure it looks good.” There’s a definite smile in his voice. I hate that I can tell.

When I feel warm, naked hands tilting my head upwards, I jerk back, taken aback by the offensive touch completely. My eyes flash to him and he’s looking at me with an unimpressed leer and a twist to his jaw. He’s removed his gloves; when did he do that? It was easy to pretend he wasn’t human when he had his gloved hands around my throat. But now, bare skin against skin…there’s something terribly, undeniably intimate about it, no matter how I try to think about it.

“Hold still,” he orders, actually sounding serious. “You’re ruining my focus. And keep those eyes closed.”

I close them and I am thrusted back into darkness. My hands ball into fists when his fingers take hold of my jaw and keep me in place. The paint isn’t cold, but it is thick and sticky and smelly. I can only imagine what he’s doing, and I can’t believe I’ve agreed to this.

“So. How _did_ you escape Arkham Asylum?” I ask awkwardly.

He chuckles softly. “Who said anything about an ‘escape?”

“What... what do you mean?”

“I’ll be back there first thing in the morning. Walked right through the front gates and I’ll walk right back in.”

_What a load of absolute bullshit._

“You’re not serious. Arkham is heavily guarded. I’ve seen that with my own eyes. It’s full of security, and cameras, and locked gates, and high walls-”

“-and dumb cops who insist on looking the wrong way. No one knows I’m gone.”

“They must’ve figured it out by now though.”

“I’ve got some very loyal people on my side of the bars. They’d cover my tracks for as long as I want if I ask nicely.”

“I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you take a stroll outside the prison walls, then.”

He doesn’t give a verbal answer, but he hums and there’s a palpable smile in that.

The paint is so thick, I feel it’s weight on my face. Also, the chemical fumes of the oils are burning the inside of my nose and causing tears well up even with my eyes closed. They’re begging to roll down the newly applied paint, but I know that wouldn’t be a very good idea.

“How’d you get the gun, then?” I surprise myself with the question.

“A friend of mine asked for one and a cop gave it to him.”

A bubbling laugh slips past my lips before I can stifle it. Jerome removes the brush from my cheek and lets out a long sigh.

“This friend of yours knows how to ask for things nicely, too?” I ask.

“He can be very persuasive. Didn’t I tell you to hold still?”

I try not to move and manage to stay quiet for at least two minutes until the questions crowding my head become unbearable.

“What did my classmates tell you about me?”

“That you’re a sad loner and a mute. I'm now beginning to doubt the latter,” he says dryly.

I try not to frown. “Those people don’t know me.”

“You like saying that, don’t you? They knew enough for me to find you, and, mind you, that wasn’t hard.”

“You mean they actually told you where I live?”

“They didn’t have to. I can read between the lines.”

I scoff incredulously. “That's a neat magic trick.”

The brush falls away from my face. “You’re pissing me off.”

“I answered all your questions, why shouldn’t you answer mine?”

“Because you don’t make the rules here. Now shush.”

I sigh and play with the hem of my shirt. God dammit his hand is warm. A chilly night like this is the perfect weather for a warm hand, but I don’t have it in me to enjoy it even in the slightest. It’s got blood tainting it, it’s a bad hand. Evil hand. There was no reason to abandon those icky grayish gloves. I curse him mentally because a part of me feels he’s doing this on purpose.

If I stay quiet for any longer, I’ll just keep thinking about what a miserable waste of hand this is.

“You’re wearing Arkham’s prison clothes.”

He lets out a small sigh. “You’re very observant.”

“How’d you get here without getting caught?”

“Never underestimate people’s stupidity.”

“Why did you- “

“If you don’t shut that trap of yours, I’ll shove my fist into it.”

The threat sounds empty, like there’s no true weight to it, but I do bite my tongue and quiet down a bit. His fingertips lightly caress my cheek and I bite my tongue even harder. The touch is dreadfully soft, barely even there in a way, like the fluttering touch of a feather. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever felt.

After a few short minutes, he lowers the brush and his fingers finally drop from my face. Tired of keeping my eyes closed, I open them without waiting for him to tell me to do so. At first, he’s just looking at me in consideration. He rests his chin in his paint-stained hand and tilts his head from side-to-side as he studies me. Then, a satisfied grin stretches his distorted mouth and an unsettling chill creeps up the length of my spine.

“Don’t you look a masterpiece. I could just take you home and hang you on my wall.”

I cringe. “Thanks, but I'll pass. What exactly is painted on my face?”

“Just my honest opinion of you. I’m quite proud of it.”

“Wonderful. Now that you’re done, may you leave?”

_Please, please, please._

“Not until you paint my face, too.”

_Kill me why don’t you._

He’s already handing me the brush and lowering his face down to meet mine equally.

“I… I don’t have anything in m- “

“Let your hand do the work.”

“Easier said than done,” I mumble.

His eyes close and I am tremendously thankful for that. I analyse his face with a calmness I didn’t think was possible. He painted his true opinion of me on my face, he says. That ought to be interesting. I bet it’s even offensive, if not appalling. I try channeling that same mindset, to paint him the only way my mind can think of him. Not necessarily a monster, but a thing with no name. A creature with translucent eyes and a permanent, nightmarish smile.

I dip the used brush into some solvent and watch the paint dissolve into the liquid. Retrieving the clean brush, I coat it with a generous portion of titanium white. I want it looking pale, pasty, and ghost-like. I approach Jerome with the brush and he doesn’t flinch at the first stroke. It makes me deflate with disappointment.

I’m not being careful. I start clumsily and messily from his hairline and work my way down, masking his freckled skin with a concrete layer of white. I try not to get distracted by the contrast of the piercing white and his flaming orange hair. I’ve never seen such a vibrant color on a person before; it puts me in a cosmic sensation of awe and contemplation. He shouldn’t be this interesting. Not at all.

“ _Why_ are you a loner?”

The question shakes me out of my trance.

“I’m not,” I deny immediately. “You shouldn’t go believing everything you hear.”

The corner of his mouth quirks with unmistakable levity. “You hear something once, it’s coincidence. You hear it multiple times from different sources, it’s fact.”

 ** _Ooffff_**.

I should paint a giant turd on his face.

“I choose my friends very wisely,” I decide to reply.

“That’s something an adamant loner would say.”

The fingers grasping the slender brush twitch. “Are you trying to piss me off too?”

He chuckles, causing his shoulders to shake. I retract the brush from his face and glare at him.

“Maybe,” he answers smugly, eyes still closed. “Come on, what’s the hold up? We don’t have all night. You want me to leave so that your life can go back to being boring, remember?”

“Vividly. Now stop moving,” I mumble and continue working my way down his cheeks. With every few stroke, the bristles of the brush get caught in his growing stubble and I bite down on my urge to grouse. It’s slowing down my work.

Once I’ve completely coated his face from hairline to jawbone with the thick base, I retrieve a much softer brush to start going over his lids. I need his eyes rimmed with dark circles like they’re bottomless black-holes. I need those dull eyes to come to life, to be both fire and ice. Surveying my scattered paint tubes, I choose to go with burnt umber. It’s raw, ancient, and scorching. It bugs me that he still doesn’t flinch when I swipe the sticky brush onto his lid.

The rise of his chest as he breathes deeply tells me he’s going to speak before he opens his mouth.

“What’s a clever girl like you majoring in accounting for? Do you want a miserable career to go with your miserable life?”

I’m not even fazed. I saw this coming. “Is there anything my classmates didn’t tell you?”

He smirks. “Don’t be upset. They didn’t do you any justice.”

“That’s certainly a relief,” I quip sarcastically. “I’m good with numbers. It’s easy. Accounting didn’t seem like such a bad path for me.” I don’t know why I answer his question. I do so unthinkingly, too. It feels like small talk. It shouldn’t feel like small talk.

“I bet you try convincing yourself with these words every day.”

I scoff. “You still talk as though you know me.”

Although his eyes are closed, I know he’s rolling them. “I don’t need to know you to understand you.”

“Well, you don’t, so please stop trying.”

“You should have been an artist.”

“Stop,” I repeat, hands gripping tightly at my brush. He’s saying things I’ve only ever heard in my head. How is he getting inside my head like that? Reading out my own thoughts to me?

“And now you’re going to waste your life and become a casual nobody, forever handling another somebody’s dirty work. It's all making sense now. Everything fits. Not only do you admire the Penguin, but you aspire to be like him, too.”

“I said stop!” I seethe, not at all meaning to lose my nerve.

We’re both silent for a while. I remove the brush from his lid, partially to study it but partially also to give myself a breather. My hand is shaking with anger. **_I’m_** shaking with anger. What the hell am I painting a murderer’s face for? On a Saturday night… in my apartment… and he’s getting under my skin like a sneaky little parasite, feeding on my insides until quenched and satisfied.

I glare at him while his eyes are still closed. I stare with tired, burning eyes, and I pray that he feels the heat sizzling against his skin.

He did as I said. He stopped, and now he’s quiet. I hate that he listened to me, that I can’t scream at him anymore. I hate that he’s agreed to withdraw his weapon, that I no longer feel the adrenaline to kick him in the groin and escape my own home. When he sighs, I hate that he breathes. When his lips purse impatiently, I hate that there will always be a smile in them, regardless. But most importantly, I hate that even as I’m sitting here, loathing him, painting him as the monster I see him as… I hate that he’s just a man.

I shift away from him a little to look at him more carefully. When I take in his closed eyes, his supple lips, and his soft breathing, I cannot help but see him as nothing more than a man. A young man. Perhaps he’s not normal, but he _is_ human, and his scars are only flesh-deep. I think that, in some twisted way, he enjoys being a monster, or maybe he enjoys pretending to be one. Maybe I’ll never find out which one it is exactly, but for now, I see a man with a gruesomely stretched mouth who is sometimes uncertain to smile. I know what I want to paint.

“Anna,” he says softly, warningly. “Getting bored.”

“I had some enlightenment,” I say offhandedly as I dip the used brush into some more solvent to clean it completely.

He cracks open one eye, the eye I haven’t painted yet. “How intriguing. Care to share?”

“No, and close your eyes, I’m not done yet. Just need to get some olive oil from the kitchen.”

His eye remains open and is soon followed by the second one. Then, almost comically, his brows knit together tightly. “Did I hear you right?”

“Yep.” I get up from my seat and he’s quick to follow my lead, towering over me with a frowning, half-painted face.

“And the olive oil is for?”

“Your face. Well… one side of it.”

“Why does this sound like funny business to me, Anna?”

“Because it _is_ funny,” I say, chuckling involuntarily. “I made a mistake. I need to take this side of the paint off.” I say, pointing at the left side. “And the best way to do that when using oil paint is by applying olive oil.”

His hard stare softens, an amused smirk twitches around his mouth. “And you said you didn’t crave perfection.”

I lift a brow. “Nothing is without flaw, even what’s perfect is imperfect in its own way. And you, Mr Valeska, are riddled with unbelievably perfect flaws.”

His grin widens before he takes a swift step closer to me. He’s twice my width and for a brief second, I’m in awe of the muscular slope of his shoulders. When he takes another step forward, he’s close enough for our chests to nearly bump. I’m forced to crane my neck up to look at him.

“Was that a compliment?” he drawls, head bending down towards me. I tense when his chest brushes against mine and his smiling lips find my ear. “ ** _Ann-ah_**?”

 _Did he just purr my name?_  It sends an unexpected shiver down my spine. Not a good shiver. A surprised one. At least, I hope that’s what it was. However, if that's the case, why did it make my toes curl and my breath hitch?

I’m cold. That’s why. It’s the only logical explanation.

“It... it wasn’t…” 

“Wasn’t it?”

He’s not holding me in any way. I can move if I want to, and I do want to. I do. When I try pulling back an inch or two, he follows me, his cheek still pressed against mine and his mouth still smiling at my ear. He chuckles, and the vibration of it ripples through me, rattling my bones. I take in a large inhale in attempt to maintain composure, but I’m stunned by an overwhelming array of odors.

_Dirt. Sweat. Oil paint. Bananas. Hazelnut. Oak._

He’s chuckling again, and now he’s nuzzling my ear with the tip of his nose. “You enjoy making me wait, don’t you, my dear?”

With a strength I didn't know I possess, I forcefully push against his hard body. He staggers backwardly, but not clumsily. It’s as though he expected to be pushed away at that very second. When I lift my gaze to stare at him, his mouth is stretched into a shit-eating grin.

He thinks he can break me and frighten me by making me uncomfortable, by simply violating my personal space and breathing down my neck. I burn indignantly at the thought. His cat-like grin still plays along his mouth, his eyes still dance humorously, and all I want to do is wipe away that expression with my solvent mixture.

“It was more an observation than it was a complement,” I finally answer, voice hard.

“Thank you, then, for a flattering observation.”

I look at him dubiously. “You don’t get many compliments, I gather.”

He smiles, but it's not genuine at all. It's straight-up sour.

“Certainly not as much as Birdman does. Are you going to write your report about me?”

“Maybe,” I mutter, walking past him. “If I feel like it.”

I go to the kitchen and feel his eyes watching me. Retrieving a bottle of olive oil and a couple of paper towels, I make my way back to him and he’s still standing.

“Sit,” I tell him. “This won’t take long.”

Smirking, he takes a seat and his eyes follow me as I do the same, taking the seat next to him again. I apply a bit of olive oil onto the paper towel and wait for the material to absorb it. When I look up, Jerome has his eyes fixated on my hands, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Head up,” I say, approaching him with a soaked towel.

“Yes, ma’am.” He lifts his head very slowly until his eyes are leveled with mine.

I start wiping along his jawline, careful not to ruin the right side of his face. It’s coming off nicely, given that the paint is fresh, and I can clearly see my vision now. At first, I try to ignore his eyes, dancing with unyielding humor, but when I reach his cheekbone, my palms begin to sweat. He’s staring at me too intensely.

I clear my throat. “Didn’t you say that staring is rude?”

He grins. “It was rude when you were doing it. I’m not staring rudely.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

His grin remains and his eyes close once again.  I take the opportunity to remove the paint around his left lid. He still doesn’t flinch.

“I didn’t think you had a brother,” I say aimlessly.

His jaw juts forward slightly. “He’s as dull as a white wall.”

I wet my lips. “Is he… anything like you?”

His eyes snap open and I alarmingly pull back.

“I wouldn’t know,” he says, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “What would someone like me be like?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Annoying, pushy, imprudent, obsessive… to name a few things.”

He coughs out a laugh. “Such flattery. My darling brother and I have been playing hide and seek for nearly two decades. He thinks he’s good at the game, but oh… he’s slipping. When I find him and have a bit of heart-to-heart, I’ll write to you. I’ll tell you exactly what he’s like.”

I blink. “You’ll… write to me? You said that, after today, you’ll leave and never look back.”

Jerome grins. “And I do try to be a man of my word. Now hurry up, you’re taking too long.”

I hastily clean away the rest of the paint. His face looks torn right down the middle, a clear line between monster and man. But I’m not done yet.

I line out three paint tubes: white, yellow, and red. I mix them onto a sheet of magazine paper until I manage to match his pale skin tone. Retrieving a clean brush, I coat it with a generous portion of my mixture and hold it up against his face. His expression is completely stoic as I paint slowly and calculatingly.

Focusing entirely on the left side, I completely mask the pinkish scar bordering his face. Next, I need to get rid of the grayish shading under his tired eye. Switching to a much softer brush, I start going over the taut skin under there, giving him a much healthier complexion.

“Anna,” he says quietly. I feel his warm breath against my painting hand.   

“What?”

“Do you promise to write your report about me?”

I have to stop myself from poking his eye. “I said I’ll think about it, didn’t I?”

“Don’t you find me interesting enough?”

“Don’t you ever get off your high-horse?”

He chuckles again, shoulders shaking, but I don’t retract my hand this time. If he wants to get hurt, I won’t deny him that pleasure.

“You’re a terrible tease.”

I can’t help the forceful smirk that tugs at my mouth. “You bring the worst out of me.”

“One of my many talents.”

I almost finish painting around his eye when the quiff of his hair falls down and hangs over it. Lost in my creativity and without much thought, I push it back with my free hand, combing my fingers through the soft lock of hair. The sound that draws from his parted mouth is almost subliminal to my ears. It’s not deep, or gravelly, or feral; it resonates from his chest, not his throat. A whimper; a small sound of unexpected… yearning.

I stare at him dumbly. What an odd sound to come out of such a man. I almost think it was exaggerated.

The lock falls again. Without any hesitation, I thread my fingers through it a second time, pushing it back over his forehead. For some unknown reason to me, I want to hear that sound again, to understand it. Surely enough, it spills past his lips once more, only now it’s not as small. A long moan escapes him and his head lolls back at my touch. I’m completely bewildered by his reaction. He reminds me of Winnifred and how I pet her as she lays on my lap.

“Hmm…” Jerome rumbles and I retract my hand.

He rolls his head over his shoulder and opens his eyes to stare at me. A corner of his mouth curls upwardly, but his gaze is bewildered.

"Weird," he murmurs, chin tilting. “I’ve had my hair yanked as a kid, all the time. I’ve felt it ripping out of my scalp too many times to count. It could’ve been 'cause I’d talked back, or chipped a plate, but there were times when my mom’s boyfriends drunkenly did it just for laughs. Mom would laugh with them. I stopped crying over it after the first few times. The thought of having their cold blood on my hands helped lull me to sleep every night.”

I shift uncomfortably under his eyes and he inches closer to me, captivating my full attention.

“What you just did, my dear Anna, was prove me wrong, and that is no small feat.” A naked hand comes up to caress the tips of my slightly damp hair. “Never would’ve thought hands could be gentle there.”

I stiffen, but I don’t jerk away.

He starts twiddling the strands of hair between nimble fingers. “Is it necessary to keep it wet after a wash?”

_What a stupid… stupid thing to ask…_

“No,” I mumble. “I like the way it feels. Why… why were they so cruel to you? To a child?”

He sneers. There’s a flickering twitch to his mouth. “Not like I ever had a heartfelt chat about it with my sweet mother. But I wasn’t stupid, not even as a kid. She resented me alright, but not because I hid her whiskey from her and fought with her piss-smelling lovers. I was not my brother,” Jerome says, shrugging carelessly. “Nor was I ever going to be. She didn’t like that.”

“Is that why you killed her? Because she was so cruel?”

His hysterical giggle envelopes me like a cold, wet blanket. I don’t know how crazy he is, or if he was even proven clinically insane, but the sound of his manic laughter just then is the only proof I need.

“Don’t feel too sorry for her,” he says, grinning widely. “She did way more than just yank on my hair! I did give her a second chance. Eighteen years worth of second chances! Talk about generosity, right? Killing her was the final act of mercy she ever got from me,” he rasps, voice dropping dangerously. His mouth hangs open in a silent laugh.

I try to keep my cool, to breathe normally as though this is a normal conversation I’m having with a normal stranger. I tuck my hair behind my ears, making the strands between his fingers slip past them like a balloon string he couldn’t snatch at the nick of time. His smile falters and the dilated pupils of his eyes return to their regular size. With a resonating hum, he sits back and tilts his head at me, curiously.

“Did I scare ya?”

I smile meekly, but I don’t answer right away. I don’t know if I’m scared or not anymore. He may have put his gun away, and he may have promised not to hurt me, but he did kill his own mother and dozens of innocent people. I don’t trust him, but am I scared of him? I don’t know.

“You’re just a man,” I finally say.

He laughs, but its not honest. He’s forcing it a little. “I know some folk who’d beg to differ.”

“I do, too,” I say honestly. “Now, please, let me finish so that I can go to sleep.”

He gives a great exhale and leans in for my brush to reach his face. He keeps his eyes open now and I ignore them as best as I can. I conceal the scar that stretches from the left side of his mouth all the way to his cheekbone with my skin-shade mixture. Now, I only have the right side of his mouth to complete, and I know exactly what I want to do. I mix a bit of crimson with just half a drop of ivory black until the color turns blood red. I apply it to his lips as though it were lipstick. Then, I stretch the paint out to his cheek, using the scar there as my outline. When I finish, I pull back and survey my work.

It’s so… so… devastatingly beautiful. A representation of the creature he wants to be and the man that he once was, probably, in a very distant past. When I do not react immediately, Jerome crosses his arms and arches a brow.

“It better be pretty, ‘cause you’re not putting any more olive oil on my face.”

“It’s perfect,” I blurt, aware of the slight astonishment in his eyes as they square in on me.

“Thought perfection doesn’t exist.”

“It would appear you’ve managed to prove me wrong, too.”

He grins very, very broadly. “Great minds…”

“Yeah, yeah,” I brush him off, getting up from my seat. “Okay, so you painted my face, and I painted yours. We did everything you wanted to do and now you have to keep your word.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mimics, getting up and looking down at me with that split face. “Are you going to write your report about me?”

I repress a frustrated groan. “You, my friend, are ridiculously whiny,” I say, jabbing a finger into his solid chest.

He smirks. “'Ambitious' would be a more appropriate term. I think my visit would be a waste of time and paint if you don’t start typing away about me.”

“Good night, Mr Valeska,” I say, leaning over the sofa and opening the window. A cool breeze slams into me. I shudder, but he doesn’t.

It’s still dark outside, but I can detect the thin line where the morning sun is beginning to peak from. Its bright fiery rays clash greatly with the dark sky, creating an illusion of pink, purple, and dark blue clouds. I haven’t seen the sunrise in such a long time. I stare at it a bit longer than expected.

“Beyond the horizon, a dragon is waking.”

My eyes snap back to Jerome, and he’s looking out at the scenery with me.

I wish he didn’t have to say shit like that… It makes me want to listen to him some more.

“Then you better leave before it comes to gobble you up for breakfast,” I quip, gaining a short chuckle from him.

When a gloved hand grips my shoulder, I gasp in surprise. He’s not squeezing me or hurting me; he keeps me in place. He wears a gentle smile and I find myself wondering whether it’s real or not. Then, he fishes something from behind his back and holds it out to me.

“Do you want this back, or can I keep it as a souvenir?”

I don’t believe it. He’s holding up my phone. How did I not think to ask him?

_Ugghhhh… Stupid._

I snatch it quickly, afraid it might have disappeared right there in his hand.

“You can call whoever you want,” he assures. “Cops, family, your non-friends, I don’t mind. I’ll be back in Arkham before the dragon fully wakes, and no one will believe a single word you say.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I say, frowning at my own words. Why the hell wouldn’t I call somebody? This guy knows where I live God damn it. He escaped Arkham and managed to find me within that very same night. He scaled my building with a gun sticking out of his pocket and no one saw!

The fingers gripping my shoulder flex and my train-of-thoughts comes to a screeching halt.

“Such thoughts will keep you up at night, Anna. If you can’t make sense of them, accept them,” he whispers, like he’s just revealed a dire secret that could change my life forever.

Then, before I can respond, the hand tightens as he leans down to press and warm, lingering kiss to my cheek. It burns me, I can imagine my skin there bubbling with heat. This must be what the kiss of death feels like, and it sucks because it’s terribly, horribly soft and beguiling.

I swallow thickly when I feel him pulling away, but he pauses. He inhales deeply, and my eyes widen. He’s sniffing me, his fingernails digging into my shoulder hard enough to make me uncomfortable. He sighs, content, and lifts his head to smile at me. The paint on his mouth is smudged, and a part of me grows angry over that.

“Sorry,” he says, but I don’t believe him. He’s too amused. “I have a soft spot for lavender.”

I scoff, praying my voice wouldn’t break if I speak. “You… can’t just smell people like that.”

He sends me a dry look. “I only follow your example, my dear.”

I’m stunned, and embarrassed, and my hands start to sweat. I’m thankful that he doesn’t address me again and steps over my couch with dirty shoes. He sits on the windowsill, looking down and measuring the distance.

“You could just use the front door,” I suggest, voice wispy.

“How boring,” he mumbles before turning to me. “Don’t watch me leave. Lock your window and go to sleep.”

I realize that he’s waiting for an answer and I give a quick nod of my head.

He grins, satisfied. “Thank you for your fine hospitality, dear Anna. If you’re lucky, you just might see me again. Until then, write that report.”

With that, he drops down soundlessly. I catch my breath, trying to listen for a crash or a grunt, but nothing comes. I shut and lock the window with more force than needed and proceed to stand idly in my quiet apartment. It’s too quiet now. I wait this way for a few minutes, pausing to see if I’d hear a tap on my window or a distant, manic laugh. When nothing happens, I draw the drapes in and take a long, deep inhale.

I want to wipe away the sweat on my face, but I remember the paint. I run to the bathroom and grip the sink as I stare into my reflection.

There’s a big, fat cloud hovering on my forehead. The paint there is thick with black and grayish patches, messily executed. Golden, cartoonish lightning bolts fizz out of the ugly cloud, giving me the impression that this isn’t a typical rainy day. Blue and purple raindrops heavily fall over the rest of my face, cascading me in a sheet of depressive sorrow.

_What the fuck am I supposed to make of this?_

It’s a storm. _I’m_ a storm. He painted me as an angry storm. I don’t know how long I stare at myself for. I stare and frown until my eyes dry out, until my overthinking brain turns to mush.

He said he painted his true opinion of me, but what does the storm represent? That I’m unapproachable? Angry? Unpleasant? Does he find me unpredictable? Do I confuse him somehow? Is this how he thinks I view myself? Was this all an act for him to show how clever he is? To shown how well he’s able to read those around him? And who say’s I agree with him? Certainly not me!

I can’t believe it. He’s not even here and he’s still messing with me! I’m having thoughts about myself I've never even considered before!

When my eyes zero in on the residue red paint smeared across my cheek, I snap. I violently wash my face with all the hysteria in the world. I rub and scrub with soap until my skin is pink and raw. There’s a chance I scrubbed off the first layer of skin, but I don't care. Even after the paint is gone, I wash my face for a little while longer, just to be safe. I stop when the sunlight shines through the tiny bathroom window.

I’m exhausted and disoriented when I climb into bed. I don’t really want to sleep anymore. I want to stay up until I manage to assess the events of this evening and make sense them all. I know that all I need is to just let my mind rest but… it’s racing too quickly. I can hardly keep up with it.

_Such thoughts will keep you up at night, Anna. If you can’t make sense of them, accept them._

I hiss under the covers and clamp my eyes shut. His voice is still loud in my head.

“You don’t scare me,” I say, answering a question he’s long asked.

Sleep. I need to sleep. To sleep and not dream. To erase such images of fiery eyes and patronizing smiles.

Sleep does come.

But those images are all that raid my mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The adventure continues!

**November 25th, 1 week after report submission.**  
   
A folded-up piece of yellow paper is found wedged between the crack of my front door, battered and flimsy. The black ink inside is watered down and smells like grease. It burns my nose.  
 

\----------------------------

_Dearest Milkmaiden,_

_You disappoint me. You wrote about the penguin anyway, and don’t try denying it now to your empty apartment. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere. I can write a whole sonnet on how sad and blue you’ve made me feel, but I’m a man of dignity. **Note:** Pay no mind to the stains resembling woeful teardrops on this parchment. They’re not tears at all. I may or may not have had a mighty sneeze amidst writing this heartfelt letter._

_I’m an understanding chap, and very resourceful. There are plenty of ways for you to make it up to me, and I do expect you to make it up. Don’t worry your pretty little head over it. I’ll do all the thinking. You just sit there and wait._

_Don’t forget to keep your mouth shut about all of this. My friends are faster than the slowpoke cops in this city and, like I’ve said, I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere. Please don’t underestimate me._

_PS: Your artwork is truly questionable. I enjoyed interpreting it. Did you enjoy interpreting mine?_

_PPS: I miss you. Give my kind regards to your Winston. I miss her too._

_Xx J_

\----------------------------

  
   
My heart hammers violently in my chest while I clutch the parchment with more force than needed. Without any thought, I rip it up into a dozen pieces. I think about flushing them down the toilet, but that wouldn’t be good enough. At least, it wouldn’t make me _feel_ good enough. I need to erase this letter’s existence. I end up dumping the ripped parchment in the kitchen sink and lighting it on fire. I watch, very intensely, until nothing is left but embers and ash.

Resting against the counter, l try to organize my thoughts as I watch the grey smoke swirl above the sink. Jerome did say something about writing to me, but I didn’t think he’d actually meant it. A murdering psychopath would surely have more pressing matters in mind than to care about some paper an accounting student has written. I can’t figure it out. How many more letters is he planning to write me? Is he doing it to scare me? Could he really be spying on me? Is this really all because I didn’t write my stupid paper about him? How does he even know I didn’t?

_You just sit there and wait…_

Wait. Until what? What could he possibly have planned?

A worrisome thought of him paying me another visit causes me to shudder. I hurry towards the living-room window to make sure that it is securely locked.

Thank God, it is. I check it again. It’s still locked, and I sigh with relief. Then, I check it again, and again, and again. I check it until I’ve counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty.

Great, I’m losing my mind. I can’t afford to lose that so quickly. What are the chances of him climbing up my building again? He’d be crazy to try it a second time, but then again… he is crazy. His mind has been long gone for years.

I draw the drapes in and fill the cracks underneath my door with some old hand towels. It doesn’t make me feel any better. I still feel exposed, cold, and vulnerable.

A part of me wants to dare him to climb my building again, dare him to raise a gun at me the way that he did. I want to say that he doesn’t scare me, that I don’t feel threatened by him at all, but I’m only human. Even though an angry fire ignites in the pit of my stomach whenever Jerome comes to mind, I cannot ignore the way it nervously flips afterwards. 

I wrap my blankets around my shaking frame and hug Winnifred tightly against my chest. Sleep doesn’t come easily that night. If only I could just bat away the fiery eyes that stare into me and ignore the stretched grin that smiles too broadly.

The next day, I buy a cheap taser and some new locks.

The day after that, I hire a handyman to install them to my window and front door.

<><><> 

 

**December 10th, the week of final exams.**

A dirty, yellowish piece of paper falls out of my notebook after taking it out of my backpack.

   
\----------------------------

_Dearest Milkmaiden,_

_I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Call me soft and mellow. Everyone on my side of the bars is so… God awfully… boring… What do you think? Should I put a knife to their throats and end my misery? They wouldn’t be missed. Not even by their own mothers._

_Are you thinking about me, too? Oh-ho-ho I bet you are! I’m not the sort of guy people just forget. I owe that to my dashing smile and witty charm. Your thoughts of me better not be too distracting, though. I hear you’re in the middle of exam week. Two down, three to go, is it? Well darn, I wish I’d decided to write you at a better time!_

_**Fun fact:** I never went to school. Would you believe that I taught myself to read and write? Took me one solid month. My brother though… it took him way longer. And people say HE’S the brains in the family. Makes me laugh every time!_

_PS: Stop installing new locks. If I wanted to pay you a visit, I’d take the unpredictable approach. I never put on the same act twice._

_PPS: Pengy says hello._

_Xx J_

\----------------------------

  
   
I don’t panic the same way that I did when I received the first letter, but I do rip it up just as quickly after I’m done reading it. As I watch it burn and crackle in the sink, I begin to delve into a much more coherent thought-process than the last time.

Is this a game he’s playing with me? Is he doing it purely out of boredom? Who does he have watching me? It can’t be Jerome himself; it would’ve been all over the news and I definitely would’ve heard about it by now. When he paid me a visit nearly three weeks ago, he could only afford sparing a single night outside of Arkham. No way would he be sneaking out every day or so to spy on me and to deliver his smelly letters… right? He’s definitely got a gang parading the city for him, heeding his orders and unleashing havoc right under our noses.

When the letter is a pile of ash, I go over to the window and consider opening it up to air out the smoke. Pulling the drapes back, I wonder who might be watching me right now, and from where. 

I know one thing for certain, Jerome wants to keep me nervous and paranoid. A little fear is good, helps your survival instincts kick in, makes you spend a considerable chunk of your student budget on a pink taser and four extra burglar locks, but too much fear makes you stupid. I don’t want Jerome to make me stupid. I know that hurting me is not on his agenda and I know he wouldn’t order some muscular gorilla of his to do his bidding for him. A feeling tells me he’d consider that rude in a way, as dumb as that sounds, especially since he’s spending all this time writing me letters and sending them via secret ninjas… or through some scary-looking people with guns.

I do open my window, only for a minute, just to prove something to myself. I don’t feel invincible, but I don’t feel scared either, and that is a very comfortable feeling to experience. Jerome wants something from me, but he has never threatened me for it. It’s strange, because I know how impatient he is, and how his temper shines through when his calm demeanor is disturbed by an uncontrolled variable, like my stubbornness or my sharp tongue. I defied him and didn’t grant him his request, showing him that he didn’t pose a threat to me, showing him that I wasn’t scared to make my own choice.

I don’t think Jerome ever wanted to scare me. He never wanted me to feel threatened. He could have. He could have made use of his gun, or could have literally smashed my head through the wall, but instead, he negotiated with me and painted my face, shared my food… Suddenly I’m getting the wildest thought that maybe what he said that night was true, that he was truly trying to show me the best side of his character, to make a good impression. To convince me that he was way better than Penguin, someone he believed I admired greatly.

He’s clever, but I’m beginning to understand him more and more each day. I bet he still wants me to write about him. He doesn’t strike me the sort of man to accept defeat. He wants to keep me in line, yes. To let me know he’s not done with me while he’s still in Arkham, definitely. He wants me to write, but he wants me to do so without being afraid of him.

I can do that. I’m more afraid of my finals than I am of Jerome right about now. He told me he wants me to make it up to him for disregarding his request, to wait for him to tell me what he expects of me next.

Fine, then. I’ll wait. I choose to wait without fear.

 <><><>

 

After coming home from my last exam, I drop my books on the kitchen counter and plop down onto the couch, exhausted.

What a shit few weeks I’ve had. Shitty weeks. Total shit weeks. I’ve hardly remembered to feed myself lately with all the workload, but I’m too exhausted to care, even now.

I still feel stressed and drained, and I don’t know whether to crawl into bed and sleep the day away or pick up a brush and paint.

On that thought, my eyes lazily drift to where my Gotham canvas still sits on the coffee table, untouched. God, I really do hate that painting… Then, my gaze falls to the dirt stains I haven’t been able to completely wash out from my white couch. It makes me grit my teeth and push off the couch with a huff. As much as I’ve managed to convince myself that I'm not afraid of him, he’s sure doing a good job in not letting me forget about him… and he’s doing so effortlessly, too! That’s what’s pissing me off! 

When my stomach finally growls at me in anger for being starved for too long, I groan when all I find in my kitchen is half a jar of oats and no milk.

He's everywhere even when he isn't. He's lounging on my couch, he's swinging his leg atop the kitchen counter, he's in my Gotham painting, his smile large and unapologetic.

I need a break, to leave Gotham for a bit. After weeks of studying and very little sleep, all I I want right now is a way to relieve some of the tension building up all semester long, a way to recharge to face another semester again.

Fuck it, I’m spending time with my parents.

Within three hours, I’d wrestled Winnifred into her carrier, left my apartment with no luggage, and found myself on a plane before I can reconsider that oatmeal.

 <><><>

 

**Dec 17th, Winter Break. Essex, Vermont.**

My mother walks into the kitchen early morning with a handful of magazines and a puzzling look on her face. She’s quiet, her nose scrunched up in disgust. I immediately grow suspicious.

“What’s up?” I ask around a mouthful of cereal. “You look like you’re about to get sick.”

“This just came through the mail,” she says, lifting a flimsy piece of yellow paper folded into a square. “It smells like… like… actual shit.”

If I didn’t spaz at the sight of that letter, I might have actually laughed at my mom’s crude use of terminology.

Clumsily dropping my spoon, I leap to her side and snatch the icky parchment from her hands.

I huff. _Seriously?_  
                    
It’s oddly damp and smells more than it normally does, like a mixture of raw sewage and nasty body odor.

“Ugh, gross,” I grimace, pinching my nose with my free hand. “I’ll get rid of it.”

“But what is it?” Mom asks, keeping her distance from the offending parchment. “There’s no address on it.”

“Junk mail, no doubt,” I answer breezily. “I throw it outside.”

I leave through the backdoor and unfold the paper as deftly as I can, but that doesn’t stop it from ripping down the middle. Annoyed, I hold the paper up towards the sun and scan it quickly. The letters have faded considerably, but I can still make them out.

  
   
\----------------------------

_Dearest Milkmaiden,_   
  
_Congratulations on finishing your exams… though, really, I don’t see their point. Hope you had fun with them. **Tip:** Anything is fun if you tilt your head just right. Speaking out of experience._

_Heard you’re at your folks’. That’s sweet. They’re a bit boring, though, aren’t they? Both accountants, both retired. There’s a trend going on here, my dear… please don’t make me point it out. I don’t mean to judge. After all, I don’t know them personally, but I have seen pictures. You look like your mother, but you’ve got your father’s eyes. And might I just say, you are an exquisite piece of art._

_**Fun Fact:** My brother and I are identical twins. Talk about originality!_

_I’m planning on taking a stroll next week, do a bit of sightseeing. Any recommendations from a true Gothamite? Gee… it’s a real shame you’re outside the city. Would’ve liked to stop by for a hot dinner._

_PS: Penguin escaped Arkham yesterday. Correction: He walked out. Unarmed. While cops from the GCPD surrounded the Asylum. Does that tell you anything?_

_PPS: I wish you were in the city._

_Xx J_

\----------------------------

  
   
The letter is scrunched and ripped as soon as it's read. I’ve grown accustomed to burning these letters, but this particular one is so revolting and putrid that I’m positive it would deteriorate on its own within the next few minutes.

I’m not surprised he sent a letter all the way to my parent’s house. A part of me actually hoped he’d do it, just so I could see how far his persistence and influence stretches outside of Gotham. Pretty far, apparently. A minor thought tells me that’s why he went through the trouble of delivering it, to show me how capable he is at following me from state to state. A major thought, though, tells me he’s showing off. I’d believe that very easily.

“Where is that monstrosity of a letter?” mom asks when I re-enter through the kitchen.

“Slain and vanquished,” I say smilingly, hoping she wouldn’t ask me of its contents.

“Well, what were its contents?”

_Damn._

“I didn’t open it,” I lie smoothly, maintaining eye contact. “It was probably just a bad prank. You know how kids are.”

Mom purses her lips thoughtfully before shrugging a dismissive shoulder.

“Oh well. Now, let’s join your father in the living room, hmm?”

“Mom?” I say, frowning a little as I think back to the letter. “Did you hear or see anything about a breakout from Arkham recently? A guy by the name of Oswald Cobblepot?”

Mom furrows her eyebrows. “That wannabe mayor? Haven’t heard anything about him in months. Not since he got admitted, I think. Why do you ask?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing. I heard something, but it’s probably just a rumor.”

Or this was possibly one of Jerome’s annoying attempts at making a point on just how corrupted and messed up Gotham is.

“Yes…” Mom looks at me curiously a little before she finally smiles and rests a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go and sit with your father. I’m sure he wants to discuss your final grades with you.”

A steamy block of ice plops into the pit of my stomach and yet another realization is made clear to me. I am more terrified of this inevitable conversation than I am of ever seeing Jerome again.

Upon entering the living room, I see my dad with his eyes closely glued to the television, watching what appears to be live news. 

He turns to us, eyes wide as saucers. “Would you believe that the Penguin fellow escaped Arkham yesterday? He just walked out, unarmed! While cops from the GCPD surrounded the Asylum! How outrageous it that!”

Somewhere, I know Jerome is cackling like a madman. If I strain my hearing just hard enough, I think I’ll be able to hear that screeching echo.

<><><> 

  
   
 **Dec 24, Christmas Eve. Gotham City.**

A knotted plastic bag sits at my front door when I get home from the supermarket. A yellow piece of folded paper rests on top of it very irreverently; it’s as though it’s directly mocking me. I stare at it very mundanely and take my time before reading it. I wait until I store away all my groceries and until after I feed Winnifred.

  
   
\----------------------------

_Dearest Milkmaiden,_

_Curiouser, curiouser. You’re not spending Christmas with mom and dad. Hope you don’t mind me theorizing, but it’s either your family doesn’t celebrate this festive time of year OR you’ve reached your quota of endurance with them. You’re probably able to guess what I’m leaning more towards._

_I’ve picked up some very exciting information during my walk last week. It would seem my loving bro never left Gotham. That’s certainly news to me! Apparently, he’s dug himself a borrow somewhere and lain in it like a gopher. He’s also crafted himself a nifty alias, no doubt, with no traceable leads. If you had to live under a fake name, what would it be?_

_I’m thinking of having my big BANG! outta this gutter very soon… No one around here laughs at my jokes and this uniform is frustratingly itchy. To make matters worse, my gloves have been confiscated. Crazy, I know! What’s it to them what shiny objects I keep in there? That’s a downright violation of my personal privacy. Make no mistake, I always possess the tools and cleverness to get them back, but, sometimes, pretending to lose adds greatly to your advantage. People have a tendency of ignoring those who lay low and quiet. **Note:** That was a very useful piece of advice._

_PS: I got you a Christmas present. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself!_

_PPS: I’m counting the days 'till we meet again._

_Xx J_

\----------------------------

  
   
Paint. He’s gotten me a packet of new, shiny oil paint.

What a cruel, cruel gift.

And I hate him. 

  
<><><> 

  
   
 **Jan 10th, Gotham’s underground subway tunnels. Friday night.**

“So, you wanna hang tomorrow?” Tami, another accounting student, asks me while we wait for the subway train after classes.

“Oh, sure,” I answer cheerfully. “I’m dying to get out of the house. Who knew the first week after the break would be so heavy!”

“Exactly! I think a movie would do us both some good.”

“And some barbeque ranch chicken wings,” I add, drooling at the thought.

“Hey,” Tami says as she looks around at my backpack. “I think you’ve got something falling out from there.”

“Shit,” I mutter, plucking a folded yellow paper out from the small unzipped pocket of my bag. Whoever has been delivering these has been annoyingly quick about it. When I try to locate my messenger, I find only the tired-looking students and businessmen, all eager to get home after a long day of work and school.

I second that eagerness.

We hurry to squish ourselves into the train when it arrives, and Tami and I remain standing. The yellow paper is still crunched in my hand. Once I gain a balanced stance as the train starts to zoom through the tube, I clumsily unfold the parchment and skim over it.  
 

  
\----------------------------

_Dearest Milkmaiden,_

_Take line F tomorrow at 10:00 pm sharp. No excuses._

_Don’t get off at any station. Sit still and don’t move._

_Remember, if you’re not on that train, I know where you live, and I know how to pick your crackerjack security locks with my eyes closed._

_PS: Come alone and leave your phone. Trust me, you won’t be needing it._

_PPS: Punctuality, punctuality!_

_Xx J_

\----------------------------

  
   
What the hell.

God damn it.

It’s been over two weeks since the last time he’s written anything to me. I knew he wasn’t through with these letters, but I enjoyed forgetting about them since school had started again.

I reread the letter again and something really doesn’t settle well with me. I feel sick, like I may as well throw up right here in a crowded train. I’d have no shame, too, because my throw-up is completely justified.

He's going to kidnap me. That’s my initial thought.

And line F? Isn’t that… Doesn’t that lead to…

“Hey, umm… where does line F take you?”

Tami looks at me incredulously. “Literally over the Gotham river and through the Narrows.”

A chill suddenly makes me shiver. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

“If you’re thinking about taking it-“

“I’m not,” I assure quickly, scrunching up the parchment and shoving it into my jacket pocket. “I was just wondering.”

“Good, ‘cause no one ever takes that line, ‘cept, y’know, crazy people.”

I sigh. “Yep. Crazy people, alright. Listen, I don’t think I can make it tomorrow for a movie…”

When I get home, I burn the parchment and make myself a cup of tea to calm my nerves. It doesn't help much. Winifred greets me by grazing her head against my leg and I smile helplessly at her.

"You're so lucky you're a cat, Winnie. You have no care in the world. All you do is eat, bask in the sun, and groom yourself for two hours on end. Now that's the life. If I die tomorrow, I'm leaving everything I own to you."

<><><> 

  
   
 **Jan 11th, Gotham City. Subway tunnels, Line F.**

It’s one of the coldest days of the year. It's cold enough for me to dig up my old cashmere scarf and leather gloves to keep my skin from turning blue. Had tonight been any normal Saturday night, I would be at home with the heater on, a hot mug of tea in hand, curled up on my plush couch and watching a cheesy romcom with Winifred.

That would’ve been nice.

Since tonight isn’t remotely “normal”, I instead find myself shivering in a dirty subway train and surrounded by the most bizarre specie of people.

I’ve heard stories about the Narrows. In school they taught us about its history, how this mini island came to be a neighborhood built from mud and shit and was run by the city’s most notorious delinquents. We usually pretend it doesn’t exist, and it certainly helps that the scum who live there rarely venture far from their island. What’s been wigging me out all day is knowing that the Narrows is home to Arkham Asylum, and I feel like I’m on a crazy train on my way to a place not far off from hell.

The fact that I’ve already gone this far once before when I interviewed Cobblepot brings me very little comfort. That was a whole different scenario. For one thing, I felt much safer then than I do right now. It was an organized school-trip, my professor and his assistant accompanied us, and we were taken to the Asylum by a prearranged shuttle bus, complete with bullet-proof security. Now, I sit here on my own with nothing more than my cheap taser for protection and no phone. How dumb can a person get?

As the train shakes and rattles, I question my own sanity. I’ve managed to defy the clown once before, so why am I here, willingly? I feel like an idiot with no way to justify my actions. I am right where he wants me to be, and I feel so unbelievably dumb.

At first, I’m weary of the suspicious looking fellow sitting a seat away from me. He’s talking to himself and occasionally swaying from side to side, mimicking the train’s motion. I keep expecting him to address me with a drunken slur or reveal a blunt pocketknife which he’d attempt to stab me with. Eventually, he exits the train a few minutes later, stumbling as he goes. After he leaves, I choose another stranger to be suspicious of… until they leave as well. I do this for a long time and somehow it almost turns into a thoughtless game.

I wonder what Jerome has in mind. I wonder where he is, what ridiculous disguise he’s got on, where he’s taking me, if he’s armed… I don’t think he plans on harming me, but I still don’t doubt he wouldn’t if given the perfect opportunity. One thing I’ve established for sure is how unpredictable he is. Instinctively, my hand slips into my coat's pocket to clutch my taser. I’ve never used one of these before, and I don’t know how good a cheap one is. Still, I’m not willing to take any chances tonight.

The train reaches an ominous stop with no clear sign indicating its name. I feel myself shrinking into my coat when the car’s doors slide open automatically and a cool breeze hits my legs. I can hardly see anything outside, the flickering station lights are tremendously dim and pale yellow. No one gets off, but no one gets on either. When the doors close and the train begins chugging again, I expect myself to feel some relief, to feel a bit of tension melt away; it doesn’t. My muscles are still tight and tense and my eyes remain flickering around nervously. I know exactly where I’d just passed through, and I didn’t need a sign to confirm it. The fact that no one got in my car means nothing to me. The tension is still coiling painfully in the pit of my stomach. I know the dangerous line I’d just passed and that there is definitely no turning back now. For that reason, I now sit and wait for what will inevitably come.

I don’t look up when I hear someone switching cars through the side metal door. I don’t look up when I hear them approaching me. I don’t look up when the air suddenly smells of hazelnut and sun-baked oak. I don’t look up at any point because I know that that ominous stop belonged to Arkham Island, and I know that only one person could’ve gotten on this train.

“This seat taken?”

That  _voice_. That mischievous, sticky voice.

I shake my head, and I’m actually impressed by how unnervingly calm I am when the empty seat next to me is suddenly occupied.

He sits with a quiet grunt. I expect his arm to bump mine, but it doesn’t. He clasps his hands together between parted knees and I notice that they’re gloveless. I also notice the many micro freckles that scatter across pale, bruised skin. Is… is he actually wearing  _jeans_? How very… weird. They’re extremely faded and worn-out, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are your regular vintage fashion trend. I’m wearing jeans because I’m a normal person and that’s what normal people wear. Why is _he_ wearing them?

I avert my eyes then but can still feel his stare, burning.

_Don’t gulp. For the love of God, don’t you dare gulp._

“It’s rude to stare,” I say, keeping my eyes down, not ready to look up yet.

His quiet chuckle feels like it’s coming from within my head, distant and nostalgic. He sounds delighted, and this whole thing feels like a whirling dream.

“Only when you do it,” he murmurs.

_Rip the bandage. Quick and painless._

My eyes snap to his face and though my stomach churns, I feel neither frightened nor paralyzed at the sight of him the way I expect to. Maybe it has something to do with his attire, or maybe it’s because I’m armed with my own secret weapon, but ultimately, I’d like to believe that I’m braver than I think, that I might possibly possess some hidden strength I’m not entirely aware of.

But.

Speaking of his attire.

If this is his idea of a disguise then it’s incredibly laughable. The pale jeans is one thing, the orange sweater, though, almost offends my eyes. It’s too bright, almost like he’s begging to be noticed in the dark hours of the night. He’s got the hood over his head, allowing the tuft of his orange hair to peak out. I hate this sweater. It’s too ugly, too loud, too complimentary to his equally flaming hair and freckled skin. A fire ignites in my stomach as I sit and harshly judge his choice of color.

He’s wearing a thick plaid scarf. It’s clumsily knotted, but the material looks warm and comfortable. The crackling fire in my stomach suddenly calms, dims, and extinguishes, because an unexpected thought slaps me across the face so violently that I don’t know how to recover from it: The scarf looks so warm, and he must be so cold, and that makes him so dangerously human.

“Still intrigued by my fine looks?”

Sitting in a casual slouched position, his chin tilts slightly in my direction. He watches me out of the corner of his eye, and my skin crawls under his gaze.

When I catch the way his mouth curls upwardly, I frown.

“Where are we going? What do you-”

“All in good time, my dear.”

My hand fists the rim of my coat.

I can’t sit comfortably with him two inches away from me. I am way outside my comfort zone, so far out that I can’t even see it anymore. I am playing his game, allowing him to take me wherever he pleases. Despite all this, my curiosity has been eating away at my thoughts ever since he sent me that first letter many weeks ago. I have too many questions. I cannot stay quiet, not even if he decides to point a gun at me right at this very moment.

Whatever nervousness I’d felt previously is still there, but it’s hushed now, lulled away to the back of my mind. It makes way for a surge of confidence to fight through. I open my mouth, ready to spew out my list of endless questions, but the words end up dying at the tip of my tongue.

My eyes have wandered to his hands again where he’s now tapping his fingers against his knees, and I notice he’s doing so with some kind of choreography. I think that maybe he’s tapping to a beat stuck in his head, perhaps a song. If that’s the case, I can’t possibly imagine what his taste in music is like. I doubt he’s into rock n’ roll or punk. Although those genres coincide with his wild personality and knack for chaos, it’d be too overwhelming even for him. He’s eccentric and crazy on his own. There’d be no balance, just meaningless noise. No way in a million years could I ever picture him listening to classical music… and yet… I think it could satisfy the theatrical hunger he craves when all the instruments clash together dramatically near the climax of a great sonata. But no. It would still be too tame for him. It’s not enough.

His right hand is peculiarly scarred. Doesn’t seem to be the same texture as the ridges he has marking his face. Although faint and hardly noticeable with a quick glance, his hand is considerably pinker than his left, and the skin almost seems smoother and… waxier? I’m not a medic, nor have I any experience with skin deficiencies and abnormalities, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d guess he’d stuck that hand into a roaring fire some number of years ago. I could be wrong. Could be a simple trick of the light… or maybe he just has a weird hand.

His fingers stop their tapping and my trance is broken. When I look at him, I find his eyes already studying me, an impish smirk playing along his mouth.

“You didn’t follow my advice, did you.”

I blink at him. “What-“

“You let your thoughts get the better of you. You didn’t accept a single one of them for what they were, and you let them eat you up like a thanksgiving dinner.”

“You’re still so sure you understand me."

“Just as you think you understand me.”

I gape at him, an expression to which he commences with a presumptuous eye-roll.

“Oh, don’t pretend like that’s not true. I can read people, too, y’know. Don’t forget that we’re not so different, the two of us.”

I scoff at him, crossing my arms and trying to feign indifference. “Stop flattering yourself.”

He laughs quietly, and it sounds terribly genuine.

“Oh, Anna, how I’ve missed that sharp tongue of yours,” he says, before leaning into my space. I freeze on impulse, holding my breath to refrain from inhaling in doses of his concentrated scent. He stops just a mere inch away from my face, his grin menacingly large and toothy. “I do hope, Anna, that you’ve learned how to control that little pink tongue of yours, because I’d hate to have to rip it out of that pretty mouth and hang it around your neck.”  

An empty threat…  I think. He doesn’t seem as threatening as I remember him. I'd blame it on the jeans, but, then again, he's still dangerous in general. I haven’t even thought to assess him of carrying any weapons yet. I’m sure he’s got something hidden somewhere. He’s not in any particular foul mood for me to immediately cower away from him. I know he can be violent, and I don’t trust him, but I’m also braver than I think.

“You and what weapon?” I counter back daringly, if not stupidly.

Jerome snickers, hissing and fizzing through his teeth. “You, my dear,” he starts, voice high and giddy, “are such… good… _fun_.” His voice drops, and his dark smile makes me feel as though I’m reliving some past memory.

I swallow thickly and I know he’s noticed. His breathing accentuated. It’s deeper, heavier, like he knows that he holds some power over me. He reminds me of a lion stalking its prey, studying it quietly and lunging at it erratically when it stumbles.

Once he’s done drinking up the nervousness that drowns my eyes, he sits back and turns out the pockets of his trousers; they’re empty. When he’s done making a show of that, he then folds up the sleeves of his sweater and reveals nothing but pale, bruised skin. Holding his hands up to me and wiggling his fingers, he presents me with an impudent little smirk.

“I assure you I’m unarmed,” he says innocently, tilting his head slightly to one side. “Don’t you believe me?”

I don't utter a word, but I stare at him stubbornly against my better judgment.

“And I don’t think I need to ask you to turn out your pockets as well, hmm?”  
    
I try not to make any nervous jerks or twitches. I try to appear as indifferent as possible, but I’m suddenly aware of the weight of my taser pulling at me.

“Because,” he continues softly, “You’re a righteous woman, and you’re all about an equal standing, aren’t you, Anna?”

“Why, Jerome,” I say with a sweet smile, “It’s almost as though you know me.”

I expect him to laugh, but he doesn’t. The subtle smirk he wears carves deeper into his face, but his eyes do not smile. They fixate on my face, hardly wavering and never blinking. My skin goes hot under his gaze and my hands begin to sweat under the gloves.

_Calm down. Don’t gulp. Stay Cool. Don’t break._

Pursing his lips, he emits an agile hum just as the train comes to its final stop for the night. He pushes himself off his seat and strolls over to the sliding doors where he stands and gestures for me.

“Ladies first.” 

I haven’t even realized that we were the only two people left. I don’t even know how long I’ve been on this train, but I do want to get off. I want to get this night over with as quickly as possible. Unless I die, of course.

Jerome bows his head in an exaggerated salute when I pass him by to exit the train. I find myself on an outdoor platform where the chilly breeze of the night mercilessly assaults any uncovered patch of flesh on my body. Naturally, my body is prone to shiver and my teeth beg to chatter, but when Jerome steps onto the platform next to me, I bite down on all my urges. They’re a sign of vulnerability, a sign that I lack strength. Perhaps it's a combination of pride and stubbornness, but I refuse to be perceived as prey. I try to distract myself from the cold, to instead channel a burning energy, to let the fact that I'm being dragged out in the middle of nowhere anger me. It works. When he stands next to me and looks out into the vast and empty space, I glower at him. I truly hate him. I hate how he broke into my apartment, hate that he raised a gun at me, hate that he stalked me, hate that he wrote to me, hate… hate…

He’s shivering. 

_Him!_

With dry mist spewing from his open mouth and with arms wrapped around his broad frame, Jerome has the audacity to stand there and involuntary shiver as though he means it!

“Beautiful, isn't it?” he says, still gazing at the sky.

I don’t look to what he’s referring to nor do I provide him with any kind of reaction, because how dare he shiver and do it so honestly.

_He’s so cold… and that makes him so human..._

A bucket of water once again douses the fire that’s building in my stomach. All at once, letting my guard down and accepting the persistent hard weather, my body releases the strain it had on my muscles and, to my horror, my teeth chatter.

His eyes snap to me and, God damn it, he smiles. There’s no rudeness behind it, no mocking undertone. It almost seems kind, and for a few seconds, I forget to notice the scars that stretch from ear-to-ear.

“Guess we ought t’get moving, huh?” he says, vigorously rubbing his arms. “We’re both in serious danger of turning blue and, quite frankly, blue is not my favorite color.”

Not waiting to see if I’d protest, he descends from the platform and proceeds to venture onto a dirt road with minimal light.

Where the hell did he bring me? Is this even Gotham? The final stop has no name, and I can hardly see any flickering city lights in the distance. I wish I believed he was kidnapping me, because I would likely feel the adrenaline to run for my life in the opposite direction. This would be the perfect chance. He’s already a few feet away from me. His back is to me, and it's dark enough for me to blend in with my black coat… but I don’t believe he’s kidnapping me. It’s an unrelenting gut feeling I have and I don't even know why I have it! Maybe I _am_ stupid, but before I have enough time to second-guess myself, I find myself hurrying to stagger along beside him.  
   
He looks down at me and I am reminded how much shorter I am than him. With hands shoved in the front pockets of his hoodie, he quirks a quizzical brow at me.

“You could’ve turned the other way,” he says solemnly, all joking aside. “You could’ve hidden away in the dark somewhere and I would’ve kept going.”

I sigh, because I know I could have, and I know he would have.

“I guess I’m just too curious for my own good,” I mumble, genuinely feeling a pang of shame settling in the hollow of my chest. It feels heavy, and I struggle to carry it. 

“Curiouser, curiouser,” Jerome mutters back. There's a thoughtful expression on his face and I can’t for the life of me figure out what he’s thinking. 

“Do you even know where we’re going?” I ask after a minute when I realize that where we are is basically a barren wasteland of nothingness. I think this place could have been a swamp some fifty years ago with its slightly damp earth and vile, rotten stench. 

“‘Course I know. I know it like the back of my hand. I can find my way around here blindfolded while hopping on one leg.”

 _Pfftttt._ “You’re exaggerating.”

“I swear it on my sweet mother’s grave,” he says, raising an earnest right hand while resting the other against his heart. “After all, I was raised here.”

I gawk at him. “You’re joking.”

His mouth stretches into a wide smile that I know is only skin-deep. “Oh, I wouldn't joke about this.”

He makes a sharp turn towards a small hill and I pivot and skip to catch up. It’s not steep at all, but I still find myself falling behind while Jerome easily meanders up the hill with little effort. He reaches the top before I do and looks down to me. With barely any light from a few distant lampposts and with the full moon shining down on him, Jerome’s scars don’t show at all. He looks different, and yet not at all. I can see who he used to be, and see who he could have been, and he looks so sinfully handsome.

That notion ignites my internal fire again, because I feel so mad at him, and myself, and the world, but mostly myself.

“Come on, slowpoke,” he calls with a hand cupping his mouth. “Turning blue up here!”

I mutter a string of curse words under my breath and try to take bigger steps.

When I reach the top, my mouth falls open.

In front of us lies a field of glittering lights, flickering and twinkling with all sorts of colors. Nestled in the middle is a vast number of tents, ranging from small to humongous and I understand what this is. 

I turn to him, but Jerome is still staring down at the lights.

“The circus? Why here?”

He’s not quite frowning, he's glowering. He wears an intense look on his face, a hard one. His chin juts forward in thought before giving a lame half-shrug of his shoulder.

“Because it’s where it all began.”

“Jerome,”

His head jerks to me and his eyebrows raise in surprise. Slowly, a devilish smile slithers its way to his mouth and he leans down a bit. “I like the way that sounds coming from you. Music to my-”

“Why did you bring me here, really?” I interrupt, ignoring the slight chill running up my spine which I’m positive is not caused by the cold.

“Hmm. Why do you think?”

My jaw clenches. “If this is about the report-”

“Oh, pish-posh,” he disregards imprudently with a flick of his wrist. “I’ve forgotten about the whole thing! Do you actually think that I would hold a grudge over a helpless, miserable accounting student who, still, regardless of my keen efforts, chose to break my heart and bring upon me a black cloud to hover above my head for eight unending weeks?”

“Yes, I most certainly do.”

Jerome breaks into a bubbling laugh that sounds like its coming from his gut. It’s a true laugh, warm and full of life, not his usual sharp and twisting cackle. It’s endearing and natural, and I’m suddenly aware that I never hear this laugh.

Wiping his brow with his sleeve, he closes the distance between us and takes a hold of my chin between his fingers. The gesture comes from nowhere, and although it startles me, I don’t pull away. 

“Oh, how right you are, you clever girl, and, oh, how I’ve missed you!” he croons at me as though I’m a mere toddler receiving praise. He gives my chin a small shake and releases me quickly.

Typically, this is where I would scoff and protest against him speaking to me in such a demeaning way and request that I am not to be touched under any circumstance, but right now is not one of those typical moments. I stay quiet and still because all I can think about, all I find important to think about, is the fact that his fingertips were ice-cold, and that they should’ve been toasty warm.

Fuck, I hate this man.

He skids down the hill like a professional sand-surfer. I choose to descend with the lame ‘side-step-side-step’ routine until I make it down to the bottom with safety and ease.

Jerome snorts at me when I reach him, an unimpressed leer crossing his face. 

“Y’know, for a funny girl, you sure know how to suck the fun outta things.”

I shrug stiffly, feeling my joints beginning to freeze and ache. 

“Nothing’s perfect.”

“Ah, right. I’ve forgotten.” The smile he wears is playful and mischievous at the same time, making him look like a proud child who’s been let in on a little secret. 

I cannot hide the small smile pulling at my own mouth in return.

“How’s that canvas of yours coming along?”

Immediately, my smile falls. “None of your business,” I snap, walking ahead of him towards the lights.

I hear him faintly snickering behind me before he catches up to me, rubble shuffling under his feet. He stays quiet now, but a smug smirk remains plastered on his face.

I wish I’d brought some of my solvent mixture with me…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man oh man is it great getting back to this fic!
> 
> Originally I wanted to post one big mega chapter but saw that I'd actually written so much that I decided to split it into three parts.
> 
> The next chapter is taking some time for me to edit and polish but I can't wait to post it!
> 
> Let me know of your future predictions and we'll see how 'on-the-nose' many of you are ;)


	3. Chapter 3

The closer we get to the circus, the more I want to gag from the stench of animal odor and feces. Jerome doesn’t seem bothered by it, and now I’m beginning to think that perhaps he has no sense of smell.

“Why did those letters you sent me smell like a public toilet?” I ask on a whim.

“A magician never reveals his tricks,” he sings patronizingly. 

“Well, why did you-”

“Later,” he silences with a wave of his hand. “This way.”

He wraps his chilly fingers around my gloved wrist and steers me off to the side of the camp. He walks faster than I’m used to; I end up huffing and grumbling as he tugs me along. The closer we get, the more I hear the chatter of people not too far away from us. 

A barbed fence encases the circus ground. Jerome bypasses the locked gate with a “Haly’s Circus” sign askewly hanging from it and proceeds to walk around the fence. For a while, I begin praying that he doesn’t insist we jump over it. Walking alongside it, Jerome grazes the fence with his free hand until he comes to a swift halt. I stop just mere seconds from crashing into his shoulder.

There’s a clean opening in the fence that’s clearly been cut by a sharp tool. Jerome ducks through and waits for me on the other side.

 I stand, motionless. “You knew this opening was here.”

Jerome sighs. “What’s your point?”

“Are we breaking in?”

He chuckles to himself. “Contrary to what you might believe, I don’t make it a habit of breaking into places. Too secretive, too boring. We’re welcomed guests here.”

Unconvinced, I lift my eyebrows. “That’s a bold lie.”

Jerome rolls his eyes so violently I’m surprised he doesn’t knock himself out. “Alright. Fine. Maybe not ‘welcomed’, per say, but we _are_ expected.”

“Expected? That’s an interesting choice of words.” 

“That’s because I’m an interesting sort of guy. Now hurry, I want you to see this.”

Although I’m still unconvinced, I do step through the assaulted fence.

As I follow him, I feel the need to crouch and hide in fear of being spotted. Now that we are exposed to the circus’ harsh yellow lights, we’re out in the open, easily detected and identified. Looking towards Jerome just a few paces ahead of me, I notice how confidently he’s carrying himself. He is not in any way trying to camouflage, not at all whipping his head around worryingly like I am. With shoulders relaxed, he walks with his head held high. He is the embodied image of all things rebellious and dauntless, whereas I currently resemble a deer in flashing headlights.

I spot a group of about ten men having a drink around a small bonfire and every one of them turns to stare at us. My heartbeat picks up and I feel so vulnerable and useless because I know that I am trespassing, regardless of Jerome’s airbrushed reassurance, and I know that my cheap taser is no match for a large group of muscled athletes. My eyes don’t break away from them. I wait for one of them to yell at us, for another to issue the charge, and for the rest to trample over us like dirt. None of that happens. Miraculously, one by one, they all turn away and keep their eyes down. 

Confused, I look to Jerome and my breath hitches. He continues to stare at them even after they’ve all looked away, and the smile etched on his face is unbelievably psychotic and deranged. He doesn’t look real with that manic mask on; people in real life simply don’t look like that, ever. The lines that draw on his face are dark and brutal, giving him an uncanny beastly expression of a wild animal. His eyes are black with power and his teeth are bared in frenzy and, all at once, I understand what’s happened. 

They’re terrified of him.

Jerome was raised on these grounds. People here know him, watched him grow up. They are positively terrified of him, enough to want to turn a blind eye and pretend they never saw him.

_See no evil, hear no evil._

“Boy, is it great to be back,” Jerome says, laughing cruelly.

I don’t believe him in the slightest.

“Ah, there we go,” he moves towards a small trailer made of rusty aluminium. 

I don’t follow him as he circles the trailer a couple of times, tonguing his cheek in thought. The trailer is missing one wheel in the front while the rest are deflated. The faint and patchy colors on the surface make it seem as though there could have been a painting there once, or an old, plastered poster. Jerome picks at the side of it with his fingernails, chiseling away the dead material that hangs there. Coming back to the front, he lightly kicks at the small wooden steps leading up to the front door. When the first slab of wood dislodges and falls, Jerome straightens up, satisfied.

“Home, sweet, home,” he says in a low, husky voice that doesn’t at all sound heartfelt or sentimental. He turns to me and cocks his head at the trailer. “This is where I grew up. Me, my loving mother, and darling bro. When mom invited the occasional drunken company, you can imagine how there’d hardly be enough room in there for my brother and I. We’d leave. Sometimes we slept outside all night regardless of weather. We’d be lucky to find a stock of clean hay laying around somewhere. Didn’t do much for warmth, but it was a soft spot to rest our heads. What do you see when you look at this place?”

My mind buffers. “Uh… it’s sad?”

Jerome giggles. “That’s putting it lightly. It’s all I used to know. I was made to spend hours in the heat or snow just cleaning the damned thing… everything from the rooftop to the wheels. Never got a single ‘thanks’, but I never minded that too much. I wasn’t brought up on ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”

He skips over the fallen wooden step and tries to peer through the door shutters by cupping his hands around his face. Steam vigorously spews from his open mouth. 

When he tries the doorknob, it doesn’t budge. Without any hesitation, he rams a shoulder against the weak door and it now dangles loosely from its hinges. 

With a grunt, he takes a step inside and looks around.   

“They’ve turned it into storage space,” I hear him mumbling. “How mediocre.”

Standing up on my tiptoes, I can barely glimpse at the clutter from over his shoulder.

“Come along, my dear. Time’s a-wastin'.”

“You don’t actually expect me to enter that thing, do you?”

Jerome gasps dramatically, head whipping around to me. “Manners, girl! That’s no way to talk about a person’s home. Even if it _is_ a fat piece of junk. But yes, I do expect you to enter this thing. Now chop, chop!”

“Always the impatient one,” I mutter, climbing the small steps and entering the trailer after him.

Yup. It’s full of junk alright… and I still don’t get it.

The place smells vial, probably a result of the bad plumbing that’s been neglected. Looking around, I see that it isn't much. This place has obviously been turned into a storage room for equipment and old props, but I can see the few scatterings of a previous life that was once present here. There’s a small kitchen made up of a mini sink, two stoves, but no oven. A closed door at the far left-side of the trailer leaves me thinking that it must be the bathroom, and on the far right-side are two dismantled bed frames plastered against the wall, one mounted over the other.

There is no way that those beds comfortably held more than two people. Barely.

“Ask your right questions,” Jerome says by my side.

“You mentioned you shared this with your mom and brother. It’s too small for you all.”

“That’s not a question.”

_For the love of God._

“Fine. When your mom wasn't… uh… having company, did you sleep on the top bed there?”

“Yes.”

“Did you share it with your brother?”

“Yes.”

I turn to him, the gears churning in my head. “You mentioned, once, that you haven’t seen your brother in fifteen years, so I’m guessing that you didn’t have to share this bed with anyone as you grew up. Is that right?”

Jerome’s mouth quirks amusedly. “Yes.”

I stare at him for a few seconds and he lets me, wearing a look of total aloofness.

“Why did your brother leave?”

“Ah,” Jerome’s eyes brighten up with delight. “Sweet bro thought it would be a good idea to lie one day, just out of the blue. He lied, I got in trouble, he left, I didn’t know, and the rest is history! I’ve been missing him ever since.”

I eye him skeptically. “You hate your brother. Don’t you?”

A hint of a proud smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. It’s not obnoxious or toothy. It’s small, but firm. It’s real. 

“Hate is a big word.”

He doesn't elaborate, and the gears in my head are burning a fuse.

“Did he ever contact you?”

“Never even bid me farewell.”

I don’t comment any further. Instead, I walk past him further into the trailer. I find a hairbrush on the dirty floor and step over it. Scanning the ground quickly, I catch sight of missing shoes, wrinkled old skirts, empty lipstick tubes, and a broken toy ship. Idly, I wonder if this is where he killed his mother, if perhaps I’m walking through a murder scene right now. The thought fills me with adrenaline.

Taking a deep breath, I try not to touch anything as I walk between large boxes and half-damaged props until I reach the beds. There’s no ladder to reach the top one, so I imagine Jerome must’ve had to jump and haul himself onto there, unless he used the couch to gain some leverage.

Both beds are missing their sheets and covers. The top one is just a mattress, but a small, dull green pillow lays there in the center, seemingly forgotten and alone. 

On my tiptoes, I can see a small wooden shelf at the foot of the top bed. It’s slightly askew and poorly nailed. There are about five different books there, all dusty and old.

I try to reach as high as I can and manage to knock one of the books down with a graze of my fingernail. There is no title on the hard cover. Flipping through quickly, I catch certain familiar names like “Aristotle”, “Plato”, and “Dante”. Many of the pages are dog-eared with small-written texts etched into the margins. I can’t decipher the writings, but I can tell that they all ask the questions of “how?” and “why?”.

Book in hand, I turn to address Jerome and gasp when I find him standing close behind me, hardly three inches away.

“Jesus,” I curse. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

He chuckles quietly. “Couldn’t stop myself.” Then his eyes drop to the book I’m clutching. “I remember that. I read it a number of times.”

“Why?”

Jerome plucks the book from my hands and flips through lazily. “My old man used to tell me to think and act ethically, always, regardless of how I felt... and I never, ever understood what he’d meant. ‘Think ethically…’,” he scoffs mockingly. “That, to me, was like telling me not to think at all. I read, and I read, and I read, and it just… made me… _angrier_ ,” he says with a slight growl. “Ethics, morality, and happiness… I wanted a meaning for it all, and I didn’t agree with anything these books had to say on the matter. My way of thinking didn’t change. In the end, I just figured that if I couldn’t make sense of my thoughts, I might as well just-”

“-accept them.”

Jerome raises his eyebrows at me. A slow grin widens on his face. “Yes, exactly.”

“Does your father work at the circus, too?”

“Used to.” 

“What did he do?”

“He prided himself on his gift of fortune-telling. I never believed they were real, but customers are bona fide suckers, y’know? People like to believe what sounds good to them.”

“Was he… I don’t know, nicer than your mother?”

The expression on his face turns grave. “He was a no-good lousy liar. As you should recall, I can’t stand dirty liars.”

“You continue to imply that you never lie.”

Jerome leans in and I hold my breath. “I’m a man of my word,” he whispers. “At least, I try to be, and that’s the honest truth.”

I pull back, far enough to give him an inquisitive look. “That sounds like an ethical principle to me.”

He pauses, a thoughtful look crossing his face. Tilting his head, he addresses me almost perplexedly. “Dearest Milkmaiden. You continue to find ways to flatter me.”

“Believe me, it is without intent,” I say begrudgingly. “Is this where you killed your mother?”

There’s an unmistakable twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, how interesting. What would you prefer the answer to be?”

Shuddering, I flick my wrist at him. “Never mind, forget it. I don’t want to know. Can we leave this place now?”

“Why?” he asks innocently. “Do you find the place unsettling? If anyone should feel uncomfortable, shouldn’t it be me?

“Yes, but I believe your definition of ‘discomfort’ contrasts greatly with my own.”

“There’s no reason to be nervous. Ask me a question.”

“I can’t understand how you seem to be taking being back here so lightly. This place is creepy, like a graveyard of dark tales and mumbled whispers.”

Jerome smirks. “Poetic, I like it. Your question.”

“Were you born into the circus?”

“Yes. It was my whole life. Show after show, travel after travel, it never stopped. I got so sick of it. It was killing me slowly, and I wanted to _live_.”

“By murdering other people?”

“Oh, please,” Jerome whines, throwing his head back. “I’m a very fair guy, Anna. I promise you I’ve warned everybody I’ve harmed prior to harming them. It’s not my fault people don’t listen to me!”

“Could it be your approach that’s inappropriate to begin with?”

When he straightens, there’s a mischievous gleam in his eyes. His hoodie has slipped back a little, revealing more of the fiery hair I know is softer than it looks. I watch him cautiously as he carelessly flings the book to the side and moves closer to me.

“Tell me. What could possibly be wrong with the way I approach people?”

Standing tall, I will myself not to cower away from him. “Did you not hold a gun to my head and order me to write about you?”

Jerome bites down on a persistent smirk. “Are you suggesting that a different weapon might've proven more appropriate?”

“I’m saying you shouldn’t have been carrying a weapon with you to begin with.”

“You mean the same way I approached you today? Harmless and innocent?”

“The gun wasn’t the only problem.”

His eyes boring daringly into mine. “What else was the problem?”

“You broke into my apartment.” I remind curtly. “I bought extra locks because of you.”

“You wouldn’t have let me in otherwise. I had no choice!”

I huff in irritation. “You’re impossible. Do you honestly not see how messed up your approach is to getting people to listen to you?”

“I did say ‘please’. Would you have reacted differently had I come through the front door?”

“No! You’re supposed to knock and wait to be let in!” Pinching the bridge of my nose, a voice in the back of my head tells me that I’m fighting for a dead cause. “May… May we leave now, please?”

Jerome laughs, shoulders shaking slightly. “Only ‘cause you asked so nicely.”

I follow him to the door and he waits for me to exit first. I grumble to myself, because why must he try so hard to show me the gentlemanly role he can play?

He pauses at the top of the steps while I wait for him. He takes in the scene of the decaying trailer again and sniffs, rolling a nonchalant shoulder at it. Closing the door as though he didn’t break it down in the first place, he turns to me with a broad smile.

“On with the tour!”

Jerome hops down next to me, forcing me to take a quick step back. I can clearly see how the cold has sucked the color from his face, leaving him with a grayish sort of complexion. I drop my eyes to his bare hands and find them shaking. Is he even noticing that? 

“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?” I ask again, feeling so tired and so cold myself. “If this is truly still about my paper then it’s all useless. Do you expect me to write something about you and send it to you via toilet flush? If I do that, would you feel better?”

Jerome grins and shortens the distance between us. I don’t feel any body heat radiating from him, but I am now able to distinguish his scent, and when he stalls a bit by just smiling at me, I feel the inescapable urge to lean into him. In the middle of all this biting cold and slicing breeze, Jerome smells like a summer's day, warm, fresh, and earthy. 

It’s not fair. 

Because I don’t lean into him, and I don’t embrace the summer semblance. Because he is not a good guy. He’s evil, even when he shivers from the cold, even when he gives a genuine laugh that bubbles from his gut. Evil, bad, dangerous… and it is so… not… fucking... fair.

“You’re here because you’re making it up to me,” he answers simply. 

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Jerome’s chuckles lightly. “Oh, Anna. You’re a smart girl. I think you’ll be able to figure it out on your own.”

Then, he’s skipping away from me and I curse before running after him.

Damn, for a freezing bloke, he sure is fast. I huff as I power-walk next to him, moving my arms back and forth for more momentum. I follow him between tents and inhabited trailers where people inside peak at us through their tight windows. I tightly clutch my taser to calm myself.

“How did you know the circus was here?” I ask, distracting myself.

“Friends told me. I had a few keeping an eye out for this sort of thing. Haly’s always liked camping out for the winter to fuel up and get in some newer, more exciting acts, provided that this place is still a pathetic example for the entertainment industry.”

“Friends, huh?” I muse thoughtfully. “Are they the same people you had following me around?”

“Rule number one of any showman, my dear, is to always keep people guessing.”

I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes. 

As we walk, I take in the gleaming lights and the vast colors of posters and props littered everywhere in a strange, artistic mess. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, but this almost feels peaceful and unrealistic... like a dream. Throwing a side-eye at Jerome, I am reminded that this is very much not a dream. This is most definitely my unfortunate reality.

“Where’re we going now?”

“I want you to meet an old friend.”

There’s no point in protesting. I stagger behind him and expect to meet some group of lunatics whom, in some shape or form, resemble Jerome’s antic behavior or questionable sense of humor. That would undoubtedly be fun. 

We move past a large scattering of tents. Jerome peeks inside every single one of them, tuts under his breath, and then keeps walking. The poignant animal odor is thicker now, I can almost taste it at the back of my throat and it is absolutely revolting. Suddenly I’m not so worried about meeting actual people anymore, but perhaps something just as terrifying.

He goes to a medium sized tent and pops his head inside.

“This is it,” he announces to me. “Come in slowly. No sudden movements.”

I gulp audibly, because what if whatever’s in there isn’t chained up? I doubt that my taser can take down a ten-foot tall bear on a motorbike. Although I do as he says, I make sure that he’s leading, giving me a protective shield against whomever his _friend_ is.

At first, everything is dark and I can’t really make anything out, but I hear a rustling and deep breathing. There’s a clanking sound of metal and I can feel the palpable tension gradually filling the air around us. Instinctively, I grip Jerome’s arm as tightly as I can.

“I don’t like this, I want to leave,” I hiss, trying not to raise my voice.

Jerome shrugs out of my grasp. “Quit being a chicken, Anna. Makes you dull.”

Then, he’s gone. I can’t feel him around me anymore and I stop walking instantly. I hear something in the distance, a murmur, a slight hooting, deeper breathing, and then a spark is lit. A dim light shines from the pole supporting the tent and, slowly, my eyes begin to adjust. There’s a lot of hay and shit where I stand, and I can tell that it’s not fresh; it’s been festering here for weeks. When I look up to see where Jerome has gone to, a gasp falls past my lips.

It’s an elephant, and it is absolutely magnificent. It’s huge, it’s trunk nearly brushing the sandy floor, and it’s making the oddest little sounds as it regards us warily. I notice four thick chains strapped around all four of its legs, preventing it from moving very far, but I don’t doubt that this animal can bring down this entire tent over our heads should it want to. For this reason, I remain standing by the tent’s small opening.

Jerome, on the other hand, approaches it slowly, and I believe this is the slowest he’s moved all night. The elephant backs away from him, trying to intimidate him with a feeble swipe of its trunk. Quickly, I realize that the animal is extremely weak; there is no true strength behind that fragile swat. 

I watch in silence as Jerome extends a hand out towards the animal. At first, the elephant lashes its head and backs up even further, but Jerome doesn’t hesitate. He stops moving about five feet away from the nervous creature and just stands there, patiently waiting.

After a minute of flapping its ears and chuffing quietly, the elephant reaches its trunk out to him and examines his hand and the length of his arm with a few curious sniffs and jabs. As though the elephant communicated something I don't catch, Jerome, without any tentativeness, goes over to rub at the wide space between the animal’s black eyes. He’s saying stuff to it, but I can’t hear a single word of it. Then, Jerome turns to me brightly.

“Come and say hello. He’s perfectly harmless. I promise.”

Rigidly, I shake my head. “Harmless to you, maybe.”

I don’t need to be standing next to him to tell that he’d just rolled his eyes.

“Don’t you trust me?”

I cross my arms at that, because he has _got_ to be kidding me.

“I know that you do, in your own small way,” he says, not even looking at me as he continues to stroke the elephant’s head.

I try not to snicker at that, because he doesn’t know about my hidden taser.

“If you don’t come over and say ‘nice t’meetcha’ to my good friend, I’ll unchain Baha, here, and bring him over to you.”

“Alright, alright,” I mutter before shuffling my unwilling feet over to him. I stand behind Jerome in a stance that’s ready to escape should the elephant so much as puff at me.

“Ask your right questions.”

“Uh… um… why am I meeting an elephant?”

“I’d spent ten years taking care of this big guy,” Jerome says softly. “He was always this big, but I was never afraid of him, and he was never afraid of me. He was the black sheep of the bunch, you see, that’s why they’ve always kept him in his own enclosure, far away from the others.”

Cautiously, I take a step closer. “What do you mean, ‘the black sheep’?”

“He doesn’t play too nicely with the herd. Gets into trouble, fights a lot. But people around here… they’re so… so… _stupid_ ,” he says, spitting out the word. “He’s not aggressive the way they make him out to be. He’s just anxious, distressed. He’s a wild animal, he doesn’t want to be cooped up in here forever.” Jerome throws me a sideways glance. “ _I_ didn’t.”

Standing this close now, I can see the clear recognition in the elephant’s eyes as it regards Jerome. There’s no fear behind them, not at all. Its breathing has calmed, and when Jerome strokes the slope of its trunk with his knuckles, the elephant closes its eyes and gives an appreciative grunt. Idly, I remember how Jerome had petted Winnifred and how she, too, fell into a peaceful sedation.

“Do you want to touch him?”

I blink. “No. Thank you.”

I nearly squeak when Jerome reaches back for me and grabs my sleeve. He pulls me towards him until I’m pressed flushly to his side. I freeze in my spot as the elephant takes notice of me and trails its trunk over my coat. Involuntarily, I start to shiver with fear. I know that animals can smell fear from a mile away, but I can’t help shaking. This elephant may know and remember Jerome, but I am still a stranger and an intruder. 

Releasing my sleeve, Jerome goes to loop his arm around my waist. He holds me tightly against him, and a part of me hates that I feel comfortable this way, that a part of me actually prefers his arm there. At least if the elephant decides to go rogue now, it can take both of us down.

“Why so nervous, Anna?” Jerome patronizes smugly, making my blood boil angrily. “Baha has more reason to be afraid of you than you do of him.”

I swallow thickly. “Well, Baha should realize that he’s a twenty-foot tall giant with the strength to squish us like a bug.”

Jerome chuckles quietly, bringing his face closer to mine to lightly nuzzle my ear with his nose. “He’s nothing more than a gentle giant. I’d never put you in harm’s way, my dear. I did promise.”

I can’t be certain, but I think he’s pressed a small kiss to the shell of my ear. I felt a softness, a terrible, horrible softness. Then, I feel his mouth more obtrusively as he presses his lips to the small, delicate spot behind my ear. My entire body goes up in flames. Suddenly, I don’t feel so cold anymore, and, suddenly, I’m no longer shaking so violently. I whip my head at Jerome to fix him with a hard, cold stare. I _liked_ it. Goddamn it, I _liked_ it and how dare he.

“Don’t do that,” I say seriously, keeping my voice low and hard.

Jerome’s smile is annoyingly entertained. “Or what?” 

_I’ll taser you._

“You’ll be sorry,” I reply instead. 

Jerome chortles to himself before dying off with a cheerful sigh. “My, my. I certainly hope that’s a promise you’re willing to keep. Now, take off your glove.”

I try to jerk away from him, but Jerome keeps me right at his side. I feel his fingers flexing through my thick layer of clothing. 

“You’ll be fine, and it’ll be good for him,” Jerome nudges his chin at his big friend. “He’s always so alone. He likes to be petted.”

“He’s going to thrash at me and knock my teeth right out of my skull.”

“Such drama. Here.” 

With a surprising gingerness, Jerome lifts my hand up to his view and slowly tugs my glove off by pinching and pulling at my pointer finger. Before giving me the chance to protect my hand from the biting cold air, he quickly brings it over to Baha’s forehead and rests it there, his hand covering my own.

Although Jerome’s hand is chilly, Baha is welcomingly warm, his skin remarkably thick and tough. The elephant grazes his trunk over my shoulders now but I don’t feel the adrenaline to jump away and look for cover. He does that low grunt again, bending his head further down for us, and I end up giving a long exhale full of relief. 

“See? Not so bad, huh?”

I don’t reply to him. He’s too proud of himself and anything I say now is going to encourage him.

Jerome drops his hand but I keep mine, gently stroking the elephant’s head and mimicking the way Jerome scaled up and down the rigid trunk.

“He likes ya,”

I smile at that. I never thought I’d ever, in my life, get this close to an animal so big, let alone touch and have it curiously sniffing at me.

“Keep him company.”

Then, Jerome disappears. Just as quickly, my smile disappears too.

Panic builds up in my chest as I look around for him. As beautiful and majestic Baha is, I still don’t wish to be this close to him without Jerome, someone who I now believe is able to speak ‘elephant’. 

Although I panic internally, I try not to let it show physically. I continue to pet Baha, but I do so more warily now as I look over my shoulder.

“ _Jerome?_ ” I rasp, the panic blatantly audible. “Where the hell-”

“Those bastards can’t do a single task on their own,” Jerome grits, coming back and heaving over a long hose. It trails behind him tediously as he goes towards an empty water barrel. 

Speechlessly, I watch as he switches on the hose and rinses out the barrel. Water splashes around in all directions, lightly drenching the front of his sweater. He rinses the barrel out a couple of times before finally bringing it over to Baha and filling it up for good.

Without any delay or signs of doubt, Baha immediately sticks his trunk into the barrel, sucks the water, and pours it into his mouth in gallons. He was famished, and I didn’t even notice.

Jerome firmly pats the elephant’s shoulder and watches as the water level decreases. 

“They never knew how to care for these animals,” Jerome says, seemingly absentmindedly as he loosens his scarf. “Pissed me off all the time.” His eyes then jump to me and he watches me watch him for a few silent seconds. “Ask your right questions.”

“What did you do at the circus? What were your tasks?”

“I was made to do the work nobody wanted to do. In the beginning, I managed the downtown wagon. It’s a ticket booth you’d see a couple of streets away from where the circus was showing. I was just a kid, but I was made to manage it by myself. Standing there for hours could get lonely sometimes and I tried making friends by giving kids free passes to the show. I got caught, of course, and was removed from that position. Afterwards, I was made into a shill.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh. Uhm… I was a stooge, a decoy…” Thoughtfully, Jerome scratched the side of his head. “I’d obnoxiously pretend to buy tickets to entice people to do the same. You get it? I’d put on a mini show, usually with another circus kid, to attract attention. Like, I’d turn to the kid and say… Golly gee! Haly’s in town! D’you hear about the lion tamer? He had his leg bitten right off and is _still_ performing! C’mon! You’ll wanna see this! Tickets are selling out and I want the good seats!”

I couldn’t control myself. I laughed. It feels so _nice_ to laugh.

“That’s good,” I admit. “Didn’t think gimmicks like that still worked. Did the lion tamer really have his leg bitten off?”

“No,” Jerome giggles. “When angry customers began to voice their unmet expectations, management eventually turned to me. Needless to say, I was kept out of the public eye ever since. I was taken backstage where I hauled around heavy baggage wagons for _years_.”

“Why make a kid carry out a task like that? Surely there were people much stronger who could-”

“Come on, Anna,” Jerome sends me a dry look. “There’s no Children’s Protection Program in the circus world. No one cares. Hell, I didn’t care! In the circus, you have workers and performers, that’s it. Age doesn’t matter, size doesn’t matter… you could be dumb and crippled and you’d still be expected to work.”

“That… sucks.”

Jerome snorts. “Nothing gets past you, does it. When I got older, I helped build props, paint poster ads, and eventually began looking after a lot of the animals here. Fed them, washed them, cleaned their sheds… didn’t like all of them. Never liked the horses and they never liked me either. Baha was possibly my favorite. We got along from day one, ever since I was eight. Backstage wasn’t so bad, except the worst thing I had to do was run out into the ring with a giant shovel to scrape away the animal dung as the show went on.” Jerome gave a bitter grimace. “Not to mention I also stayed behind after the show to clean after the customers’ messes and, lemme tell ya, people are one nasty specie! I barely had any time to make it to the mess tent after all the work was done.”

“Mess tent?”

“Just a place where they served food to circus folk. I’d hardly ever make it there in time. My brother would go sometimes, and he didn’t always remember to save me anything. The little prick...”

“Did your brother have the same tasks?”

Jerome bawled out a convulsive laugh. “And risk soiling his white socks? Definitely not! No, my brother was far too prim and proper to even pass through the animal shacks. He worked closely with mom, helped her train, prepared her tailored costumes, massaged her shoulders, practically kissed the floor she walked on and made a show of it, too.”

“Do you hate him?”

“Big words, Anna. I never use such big words.” He doesn’t wear a smile when he says it this time. 

He refills the now-empty barrel again and Baha immediately proceeds to quench his thirst. I back away, watching the elephant drink as a thousand thoughts zoom through my mind. It’s hard to catch a coherent one, they’re all over the place.

“What did your mother do?

Jerome wrinkles his nose. “She drank a lot, ignored me, and banged a hundred wacky nut-jobs like herself. She might as well have gotten paid for it!”

“At the circus, I mean. What did she do here?”

“Ah… She was a snake dancer. Not a good one. Her act never changed. It was the same boring routine year after year. She’d come out with the snake wrapped around her body like an elastic band and she would dance, and bend, and frolic, and the crowd would go absolutely bananas for it. The snake was merely a complimenting accessory to her costume! I didn’t get it. I never liked her act. Maybe I could’ve enjoyed it a bit more had she been bitten once or twice. At least it would’ve made me laugh!”

Timidly, I wet my lips. “As a kid, did you ever love your mother?”

Although the lighting is dim, I catch the subtle tick in his jaw. Jerome doesn’t answer immediately, and he waits until he’s refilled the barrel for the third time before looking at me meticulously.

He wears a strict expression. There’s no hidden smile there, and his gaze is completely humorless.

“If I’m to be honest with you, I’m not so sure I have the basic understanding of the word. I know I wanted her approval, and I know I felt ashamed whenever I disappointed her. Whether or not that translates into me loving her, I don’t know, but I don’t think I would’ve recognized the feeling had she ever expressed it to me.

For a question that demanded a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, he certainly did unravel a lot of information I was not expecting. I’m surprised he had a lot to say on the matter, especially when considering the fact that he single-highhandedly _murdered_ his mother in cold blood.

“Why did you kill her?” It comes out as a whisper.

His head tilts to one side as he studies me. Flinging the hose far away from Baha, he saunters towards me with his gaze solidly fixed. 

“You asked something similar to that once before.”

I know what he’s referring to. It was the night he came to my apartment, while I painted his face.

I nod to him. “Yes, I remember, but you didn’t really answer me back then, did you.”

“Hm.” He stands in front of me and finds my bare hand. At first, I flinch away from the icy contact, but Jerome only follows me and grips me by the fingers. “It’s funny,” he starts, drawing me closer to him with a smooth tug. “When the only explanation you have to justify your crime is that… it simply made sense.” 

“There has to be a clear reason,” I press stubbornly. “Why did you do it, Jerome?”

Lifting my hand, he rests it against his chest. I feel his heartbeat rippling through my fingertips. It’s slow, calm, and rhythmical; exactly the way I remember it.

“I was a miserable little boy, Anna. I shouldn’t have to say it so candidly to you. This heart,” he says, pressing down on my hand, “it raced restlessly day-after-day in fear of my next hunger, my next beating. I got used to it, naturally, but dreaded it, _constantly_.” 

Lifting my hand again, he slowly proceeds to slip my glove back on, making sure to adjust all the finger sockets.

“When you live in a grey world for so long, you start having grey thoughts. At first, I didn’t think I could have it any other way. I sucked it up for years. I’d accepted my life as the shit scrubber, forever walking in the shadow of my drunken mother and the brother I no longer knew.”

After smoothing down the material of my glove, I expect him to release me. Instead, he listlessly weaves and unweaves our fingers together as though he’s doing so mindlessly. I want him to let me go, I need to be away from his scent and his body and _him…_ but I’m getting him to talk, and I _want_ him to talk. Biting down on my cheeks, I push myself to find that small measure of strength and don’t move a muscle.

“How did you do it?” I ask, trying to lead him on.

Jerome smirks arrogantly. “I don’t think you really want to know.”

“But I do,” I insist. 

“That keen? Well if you’re truly after all the juicy details, I’m more than happy to oblige. I used a dingy hatchet, and it was not my ideal weapon of choice,” he says, laughing softly to himself. “I didn’t want it to be messy, but where was I going to find a gun? I didn’t know much of anything at the time. I knew it had to be done, and I knew that the day I did the deed was the right day to do so. I couldn’t afford any more tolerance. I was burning inside. I remember feeling choked all day. It was hard to breathe, my lungs wanted to burst, my insides wrapped around my spine, and my fingers itched with sparking friction at the mere thought of putting an end to the one bitch who started it all.”

With my hand still in his, Jerome gives it a forceful tug and I bump into him. Chest against his chest, his other hand grips my waist before he starts to sway us from left to right. A dark, bone-chilling smile creeps onto his face while terror and fear paint my own.

“Although I approached her casually, in my mind I was dancing on air,” he continues, his voice eerily light. “Color splashed into my life as I watched her blood spill and coarse over my shoes. One swift strike to her chest and, just like that, the world suddenly got better.” 

I gasp as Jerome twirls me away before slamming me back against him, knocking the air out of me. He spins us around and around farther away from Baha, our speed gradually increasing. My feet stumble beneath me as he steers me around, carrying most of my weight for me. We tread over shit and hay and I struggle against him with a building panic. 

“The first laugh that ripped from my throat sounded like an anthem to a new era!” he cackles erratically as he reminisces. “I remember her eyes as they blurred. I sat over her and watched the brief mask of denial as she clutched her chest, followed by the mask of utter shock and desperation. I held my hand over her mouth and watched, most eagerly, as her eyes finally rolled back and she laid there limp and lifeless. All the while, I danced, and I danced, and I danced!”

My head feels like it's stuck in a tumbling whirlwind and it’s making me sick. All at once, Jerome stops and holds me by the shoulders. With dizzying vision, I try to focus on the four manic-looking Jeromes in front of me as they slowly merge into one. His eyes are riveting with lunacy, the lines on his face carving deeper into his skin. He looks like a deranged caricature that can easily haunt my dreams for as long as I shall live.

I’m shivering in fear again, and I really wish I could just _stop._ The last thing I need him to keep in mind is that he truly frightens me sometimes, right down to my core. Regardless of how gentle and oddly human he tries to be, he killed the very woman who birthed him, and I see no remorse in those blazing eyes. If he could do that and laugh over the matter years later, what might stop him from breaking my neck and leaving me here to rot with the rest of this shit? He’d do it without a second thought.

Swallowing nervously, my free hand goes to search for my taser.

“Do you want me to keep going?” Jerome asks, holding me in place, his grin morbidly wide.

“There’s more?”

_Where the hell is that damned taser..._

“Of course there’s more. You don’t know how I hid the body and where I disposed of the weapon.”

Immediately, I start feeling sick again. There’s a bitter taste in my mouth and if he gives one more gruesome detail with that delighted smile on his face, I think I might just puke all over myself.

I shake my head. “It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me the rest.”

Jerome’s smirk deepens. “Aw, Anna. You seem nervous. Is it me? Did you not like me opening up?” 

He leans down until we’re almost nose-to-nose with each other. His eyes bore into mine intensely and for the love of God where is my taser!

“I’ll just tell you this then. I did feel a rush of fear after the euphoria wore down a bit. Not so much because I’d killed someone, but because I hadn’t planned it right. I was running on purely impulsive thoughts, which is why it made me clumsy, and I got caught just like that,” he snaps his fingers close to my eyes, making me flinch. “My first kill taught me a lot, and it’s an art-form, Anna, it really is. Now, I’m two steps ahead of everyone. _Always_. When I plan, I plan to the extreme, keeping in mind all possible scenarios. And, might I humbly add, I’ve gotten pretty damn good at it, too.”

My heart leaps from my chest when I catch sight of my pink taser as Jerome holds it up to me, cocking an amused brow at me. For such a big reveal, he’s really taking matters slow and in a composed fashion, making a show of leisurely studying the device in his hand before looking at me questioningly. 

“Is this what you were rummaging for?”

I try to seam brave by daring to look him in the eye and not cower away from him. But then, to my dismay, he switches it on, and the taser buzzes to life with crackling electricity. The fact that he’s not holding onto me with a grip-like steel tells me that this could be one of his bluffs, that he doesn’t actually plan on using that thing. He’s making a point to me and for that reason, I don’t leap away from him the way I want to.

“Sorry, I know you’d prefer to have it on your person but…” the languid smile abruptly drops and his face adopts a grim and unimpressed expression. “You lied to me. You said you were unarmed.”

“I didn’t,” I assure, my words airy. “You assumed.”

Chuckling cynically, Jerome brings the buzzing taser up to the hollow of my throat. It makes no contact with me, but I hold my breath and brace myself all the same.

“Funny girl,” Jerome snickers, his eyes relentlessly dark. “You make a bad habit of playing with fire. Have you no fear of getting burnt?”

God, I really want to roll my eyes at him.

“I wasn’t going to use it unless you’ve given me a reason to.”

“What reason have I given you so far?”

I meet his gaze lockingly. “Your senses were depleting.”

Jerome barks out a short laugh. “Dear, oh dear. I wonder what  you expected by pushing for details you knew would not sit well with your gut.”

The taser gets turned off, but before I can sigh with relief, Jerome aggressively pulls me by the arm and leads me out of the tent. I am reminded how cold the world has really gotten. The air slices at my cheeks, causing my face to stiffen and ache. Jerome backs me up against an unstable lamppost and barricades my arms between our bodies. His hand zooms up to clamp over my mouth and presses down, giving me no room to bat him away. The last time he got physical with me, it hurt. I had ugly purple bruises on my neck where he suffocated me and, on my head, where he bashed it into my wall. Now, however, he doesn’t hurt me at all. It could be a result of the cold, rendering him weak and tired, but he’s not using any force. His fingers don’t even dig into my jaw, nor is he pushing my head into the metal post.

“Dearest Milkmaiden,” he draws deeply, eyes carefully studying me. Closing the small space between us, he leans in enough that our foreheads nearly bump. He doesn’t blink, and despite his grin, he’s scowling. “It grieves me to think you’ve got some nasty tricks up your sleeves. _I_ certainly don’t. If I actually wanted to pose a threat to you, don’t you think I could’ve held a gun to your back all night? Do you think I’d spend my time making sure I’m on my best behavior as I, quite literally, walk you through my past? Through the most vulnerable times of my life?”

His gaze is not filled with fire. His eyes do not flicker with hot flames. They’re ice. Bleak. Intense. His gaze freezes me solid. 

Slowly, his hand slips down my chin and he looks at me expectantly, waiting.

“I don’t want to play games with you,” I mumble, voice quivering in the cold. “Why would you go through all this trouble with me? You obviously want me to mentally jut down everything you say, but why? Why not drag some experienced journalist out here to document everything for you?”

A pretentious smile carves itself onto Jerome’s stretched mouth and it makes him look like a downright criminal. I can easily picture him in Arkham’s black and white stripes again.

“My dear,” he drones lazily. “You ask _all_ the wrong questions.” 

Fury boils within me. “It’s not my fault you’re so vague with your intentions.”

“You’re an artist, _Anna-ah_. I thought that meant you possessed a creative edge.”

“I don’t like guessing what’s between the lines,” I hiss, wriggling out one of my arms from his confined hold to jab a finger into his chest. “So, either you tell me straight up what it is you want from me or else I’m going home.”

Jerome lifts a regal brow. “Is that an ultimatum?”

“Obviously.”

Finally, he backs up to brashly laugh at me, wrapping his arms around his middle for full effect.

“You sure know how to make me laugh!” Then, he’s towering over me again, mist spewing from him and hovering above our heads. “Listen to me, Anna, and please strain yourself if you must. You’re here because I want you here, because I like you, because you owe me.”

My brain ticks at that. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“At-ta-ta-ta, my dear.” Jerome wags a condescending finger at me. “You most certainly do. You can’t give a man false hope like that and expect him to go on with his merry life! You owe me a service, just as I owe you a second chance.”

My blood is definitely thrumming now. I could practically tear my hair out! 

“What a load of absolute bull-” 

“Careful,” Jerome says warningly, voice suddenly low and clipped. “I’ve been nothing but civil with you so far.”

“Civil my ass! You dragged me all the way out here in the middle of the night and you can’t even tell me what the hell it is you want from me? My report was a dumb assignment, okay? I got a B+ on it, it was lame, and now I have a new semester with new assignments to worry about. So, quit being all elusive and mysterious-”

_God damn it, Anna, shut up now._

“-because I won’t take any of this seriously until you tell me _exactly_ why I’m here.”

The fact that he never interrupted me should’ve been a good sign. Should've meant that I’ve successfully delivered my argument and that my opponent now stands dumbstruck as a result of his begrudging approval with my point. With the way he’s looking at me right now and with the way my thrumming blood ices over so quickly that I can feel the ache in my fingertips, I know that he is not following my script.

He hums, jaw set and lips tight. Rubbing his arm for warmth, he reminds me once more that he’s not a monster… at least, not in the literal meaning of the word.

“If you haven’t figured out why you’re here yet, then I gotta say I’m incredibly disappointed in you.”

There’s a slight tinge in my chest. I can feel its dull pierce and it's awfully uncomfortable. 

"Do you want me to write my report about you, Jerome?" 

Jerome smiles, but it's the smallest smile he's ever given me. I find myself wondering whether or not it's really there. 

"No," he says softly. "I truly, most honestly, don't."

My lips part in mild astonishment. I didn't expect him to say that.

Jerome heaves out a long exhale before looking up at the vast space above our heads. I’d follow his gaze to see what’s so interesting, but I’m heavily distracted by the slope of his neck and the accentuated muscles that pull and twist there. I think about the ways I could paint the lines that shade his skin, think about how lifelike I could make it seem. Impulsively, I now feel like I want to paint this man. Not paint his skin temporarily like before, no; I want to paint his face onto a giant canvas with all sorts of corrupted color schemes that make little to no sense.

When an unforgiving breeze slams into us. Jerome tightens his scarf and wraps his arms around his broad frame. He waits for the breeze to cease before meeting my eyes. Closing the space between us once more, he slips my taser into my pocket, right where it used to be. 

“Think before you unlock every door in here,” he says, pressing a shaking finger to his temple. “None are very pleasant, but I’m dying to share them with you, all the same. If you push me far enough, I’ll engulf you in a world of pure darkness. Colors will wisp past you in specs and, believe me, you’ll want to cling to those specs as though your life depended on them. You might just understand what truly lies behind this dazzling smile of mine.”

The twinge I feel now is more obtrusive and painful. It’s enough to make me wince.

“Why are you giving it back?” I ask him, unable to stop myself. 

Jerome smiles thinly. “Because I want you to stay, and because I know I’ll be on my best behavior. You’ll have no reason to use it anyway.”

I eye him suspiciously. “That’s funny. So, this isn’t a manipulative tactic used in hopes of getting me to trust you further?” 

“The thought never even crossed my mind,” he replies innocently, a mirthful grin fighting to break out. “Now come on. There’s one more thing I want to show you.”

Rather than pulling me by the wrist and dragging me along with him, Jerome puts his hand out for me and waits. It’s shaking tremendously. When I take his hand, I feel its sharp coldness through my glove.

“You’re freezing,” I blurt, because someone had to address it eventually.  

Jerome gives a wavering chuckle. “Ten points for observation.”

Then, he’s leading me to the largest tent within the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to go! Let me know what you liked/didn't like so far! 
> 
> This story is so much fun to write but so tiring to perfect. I'm trying to make it seem realistic enough that certain events could actually unfold this way while also trying to keep it outrageous enough that it is, in fact, Jerome who is behind such events :p Finding that balanced middle part is a lot harder than I thought it would be!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has been so supportive in the comment section. Your comments literally provide me with so much strength to keep going and I love and appreciate every single one of them!!!


	4. Chapter 4

The colossal tent sits in the center of the camp, all grand and powerful-looking with its multiple pointed tops. When we enter, Jerome leaves me again to tinker with the electrical generator somewhere within the darkness. It drones to life, and lights begin to gradually flicker until we’re basked in a moon-like shine of blue and silver. Encircling the oval interior are rows upon rows of empty customer seats. In the center of the performing ring sits nothing more than a colorful podium, seemingly minding its own business. Sprouting from the earth are five thick poles that shoot up to support the tent’s pointed tarps. With the lights on now, I can clearly see the dangling trapeze swings, ropes, and beams high above our heads.

“Pretty, isn't it?” Jerome asks as he walks back to me.

“Strangely ominous,” I say, my eyes still roaming around the somber interior of a place that should’ve ideally been filled with laughter, cheers, and excitement. It feels dead now. Dark, despite the bursting colors that highlight the center of the ring.

“Ominous,” he repeats quietly. “Interesting choice of words. This used to be my favorite place on earth, once upon a long, long time ago.”

I frown. “Isn’t this where you said you scrubbed shit off the floor?”

“You’ve been paying attention!” Jerome croons dotingly. “Yes, this is where I graced the crowd with my bucket full of shit. And, by the way, that stuff got everywhere, and I mean _everywhere_. It stained my hands, got underneath my fingernails, went down my shirt, in my hair, and you couldn’t imagine the sme-“

“Okay, okay, I get it!” I interrupt, cringing the more I think about it. “Quit describing it. Please.”

Jerome chuckles soundly. “Ah, right. I shouldn’t forget how squeamish you are with certain icky details. I'll be mindful of that. Anyway, what I loved most about this place was what happened after the shows, when the place turned completely vacant. I’ll show you, if you want.”

There’s a look of fleeting hopefulness in his eyes. It’s quick, but I catch it and store it safely in my memory. It’s strange, because it’s almost as though he expects me to say ‘no’ and, stranger yet, it’s almost as though he’d listen if I did.

The thing is… I don’t want to say ‘no’.

“Show me.”

His chest puffs out proudly as he breaks into a beaming smile. He looks much younger with this smile. He's got the excitement a child has in his eyes when he finally gets to show-off his favorite toy to you. 

“Go and sit over there. It’s the best seat in the house.”

Cautiously, I follow the point of his finger and sit in one of the front row seats facing the open ring.

Jerome goes to rummage behind a black curtain where he completely escapes my vision. Shortly afterwards, the lighting dims further and a bright yellow spotlight shines on the podium situated in the center of the ring. Jerome jumps out from behind the curtain wearing a burlesque smile with his arms widely stretched. He takes a comical walk towards the podium before hopping onto it and dramatically throwing those enthusiastic arms over his head.

“Good evening ladies and gents! Children of all ages! Welcome to the greatest show of the century! Boy, oh boy, are you in for one hell of a grand night! Prepare to have your heads blown! To have your guts spilled! To have the experience of a lifetime! Hang onto your hats, folks, ‘cause we’re giving you a show you’ll wish never ends!”

Despite the ghoulish undertone, a part of me found the humor in his small introduction. While Jerome basks in that vibrant spotlight, the tent erupts with the sound of my clapping alone. Lowering his arms, he bows modestly. When he straightens, he smiles at me. I might be officially going crazy, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that there’s a definite _fondness_ behind the look he’s giving me. My cheeks burn and my clapping begins to wane.

“I performed that opening for ten years,” Jerome says, smile still in place. “I never had an audience that clapped.”

“I liked it,” I confess timidly. “Made me want to see the rest of the show.”

Jerome chuckles and steps down from the podium to instead sit upon it. He clasps his hands together and lets them dangle between parted knees.

“I never had a fixed set of acts to present,” he says, looking down at his shoes. “I’d get creative. Would come up with outrageous acts that didn’t exist, like a trumpet-playing-shark, or a parade of cartwheeling gnomes. Sometimes I’d call out jokes, pretend to hear the laughter. Other times, I’d converse with the invisible members of the acts, gave them all specific voices… I would stay here for hours, and the hours felt like minutes, and the minutes felt like seconds.” Jerome looks up and gives me a mild smile with a small shrug. “This used to be my playground.”

I have never seen him look so _vulnerable_ before. Sitting there in the vast and empty ring all on his own, the spotlight cascading down on him like his only friend and supporter. He looks alone. So devastatingly alone and forgotten. I see it, a faint vision of how he might’ve looked as a child, sitting there when no one was around, playing a game his little mind conjured up despite the heavy agenda of no fun and play.

“Don’t look at me like that, Anna, you’ll make me cry!” Jerome laughs, tilting his head so much that it now rests against his shoulder.

I try to shake the look of pity off my face and hope that I do a good job at it.

“Why a ringmaster?” I ask, trying to rid my voice of the emotional tinge clinging to it. “Why not a cl-”

“Don’t you dare say ‘clown’,” he deadpans.

“It’s just… the media does a good job at painting you that way, you know? Gotham’s Manic Clown…”

Jerome sneers. “Jeez. How lame can a title get? I never wanted to be a clown. Never even thought of it. I’ve always wanted to be a ringmaster… the star of the show. I wanted to direct the crowd, to excite them, to stand in the center of the ring and have them hanging onto every little word I said.” He releases a long and tired sigh. “I knew it would never happen, even as a kid. This, to me, is probably what painting is to you. It's something you love, yet you see no future in it, so you give up on it.”

I scowl. “I haven’t given up painting.”

Jerome snorts. “Yeah? When was the last time you held a brush?”

I don’t have to think about the answer. The answer is staring me in the face right now and it’s smiling giddily. The cocky look on Jerome’s face tells me he knows my answer without needing to hear it. He doesn’t out me on the truth, though. He lets it settle between us like a silent wave and I’m thankful for that.

“I think you’d make a great ringmaster,” I find myself saying after a while. The thought rolls off my tongue before I have the chance to process it.

Jerome perks up. His shoulders roll back and his grin swells with exuberant joy.

“I think you’d make a great artist.”

Fuck. I’m grinning. I’m grinning wider than I ever have in his presence and I’m not entirely sure why. All I know is that my chest feels so dangerously light and that it’s such a horribly _nice_ feeling.

Jerome smirks amusedly while his eyes settle on me warmly. “Ask me your right questions, Milkmaiden.”

I notice that his hood had fallen back when he bowed, revealing his unruly hair, kissed by fire and light. He runs his hand through it now, brushing it out of his face, and my mouth suddenly goes dry. I remember how his hair felt between my fingers… I remember the sound he made when I - no. I shouldn’t be thinking about that. Nothing good can come from such unnecessary pesky thoughts.

“Why didn’t you bring your brother here to play with you? You didn’t have to be alone all the time.”

“Never told him about this little game of mine. Figured he’d rat on me since I wasn’t supposed to be in here after hours. He would’ve told mom, and she would’ve told Unc, and he would’ve beat the living daylights out of me.”

“Who’s Unc?”

“Uncle Zack,” Jerome says sourly, forcing out a vile smile. “He had a chuck wagon he’d set up on the day of the big shows. Sold all sorts of things… bagels, cookies, pretzels, candied apples, animal crackers, cotton candy, caramel popcorn… During wintertime, he’d sell soup and hot chocolate. In the summer, he’d even have ice cream,” Jerome chews his bottom lip and inhales deeply. “Oh how I waited for the summer… Uncle Zack was an asshole.”

Taken aback, I furrow my brows. “He wasn’t nice to you either?”

“Nice!” Jerome barks out, slapping his knee as he laughed. “You keep assuming people were ever _nice_ around me! News flash, Anna, no one was, least of all my family! Unc used to see how hungry and tired I was all the time. If I didn’t have a dime in my pocket, I could forget about getting anything from his wagon. It didn’t matter to him that I was starving, let alone his damned nephew. He’d have let me starve. Heck, he’d have let me die!”

Jutting out his jaw, Jerome lifts his right hand up to his face. He flips it around and studies it from different angles before scoffing at it.

“He dipped my hand into a boiling pot of chicken stock when he caught me stealing a cookie once. He didn’t care that I’d lost my voice screaming, that my skin had peeled off right before my very eyes. Mom didn’t care either. She thought it was a lesson well learned. ‘Don’t be so greedy, Jerome’, she’d say to me. ‘Little boys like you should learn their place in this world’. She’d then turn to my brother and add: ‘Isn’t that right, darling?’. He’d nod to her, and then _he’d_ get a cookie for being so well-behaved and disciplined.”

Is it possible to be plagued with a high amount of bad luck from such a young age? He hasn’t told me a single story so far that hasn’t left me feeling so incredibly sad. I can’t get over it, especially for a man who’s forever smiling. The smiling scar on his face seems like a cruel joke now; a parody of the person he could never be.

When I get up to approach him, Jerome is still looking at his hand with a strange expression on his face. I can’t make it out. Is it anger? Hate? Hurt? All the above? I don’t know. He’s not always so easy to read. When he notices me, his eyebrows raise as he watches me carefully.

I take off a single glove when I reach him. Swallowing nervously, I put my hand out to him. “Do you mind if I…?”

I don’t really know how to finish my question, but I don’t have to. He knows what I’m asking him.

For the first time tonight, Jerome blinks at me speechlessly. I catch the way his eyes briefly scan my face, probably assessing me of any brain damage. A perplexed crease faintly forms between his brows, but this doesn’t stop him from placing his hand in mine, palm-side up.

I feel his hot gaze on me while I study his hand. I couldn’t see it so closely before in the dim lighting of the trailer and Baha’s tent. Now though, underneath the bright spotlight, I see everything.

It feels like silk, the skin there is so glossy and smooth. I gently trace the faint, circular markings which I assume were once puss-filled bubbles; they look like hollow moon craters now. He doesn’t have any lines running through his palm, the heat had melted them away completely. It’s empty, barren, the skin there feels so tender to the touch. Flipping his hand, I detect no sign of any surviving freckles on the surface. They’d been cleanly wiped away too.

I sigh. _What a damn tragedy…_

His cold fingers flex and close around mine, making my eyes snap to his.

“It’s nothing more than a scratch to me now,” he says, and it sounds like he’s reassuring me.

“Children shouldn’t be exposed to such hostility, no matter the cause,” I mumble back. My heart clenches when he breaks into a soft smile.

“You’re awfully kind, Anna. You wouldn’t survive a day in the circus.”

“No question about it.”

As I remain standing this close to him, I let my eyes roam over his facial scars and consider their origin as well. They don’t seem to be of the same texture as his hand, but they do seem more severe. Idly, I wonder if they’d feel the same, silky and smooth. Suddenly, my fingers itch with the desire to touch his face and I have GOT to be kidding myself.

Jerome grins at me as though he’s reading my thoughts. Clearing my throat, I drop his hand.

“So… about your face.”

“Ah. Finally after my beauty hacks, are you?”

“A rumor went around years ago saying you had your face ripped off and sewed back on... Is that true? I couldn’t find any information about that for some reason. Not even in the GCPD’s public data forms.”

Jerome smirks pompously. “You looked me up?”

I roll my eyes. “After your unexpected visit and constant letters, you sort of gave me no choice.”

“Found anything interesting?”

“Besides papers claiming that you’re mentally deranged, no. It’s like they don’t even know you have a brother.”

Jerome laughs roguishly. “’Course they don’t. Up until a few weeks ago, I thought he might as well have been dead!”

“How’d you find out otherwise?”

“Unc,” he says, settling into a mild smile. “Sought him out during my midnight stroll a few weeks ago. Got him to spill the beans.”

“Your uncle ratted out your brother’s whereabouts?”

“Mhm,” Jerome hums, picking at the fuzz clinging to his sweater and flicking it away carelessly. “Possibly the smartest decision he ever made.”

I wait for him to continue, but Jerome has long devoted his attention to his sleeve and the loose strings that hang from there.

I clench my jaw. “So. About your face.”

“What about it.” It’s not a question, and Jerome is strangely not interested in the prime subject he _should_ be interested in: _Himself_.

“Did it get ripped off?”

“Yes.”

I wait.

_Nothing._

I wait further.

_**Nothing!** _

Of all the things for him to go on and on about… my report, my canvas… he chooses to evade _this?_ The topic which revolves around the very essence of his image in the public eye, the reason why he strikes fear in people so quickly?

When Jerome looks at me, he wears a grim expression. I can tell that his lips are strictly set, despite the smiling scar.

“It’s not how I want to be remembered,” he says. “That demon face, that hellish smile… It's all good and dandy, I get a kick out of it myself, but it’s just a costume I can never take it off.” He pauses for a few seconds before his eyes brighten. “I liked what you painted on my face. I liked it a lot. Gave me an idea of how normal-looking I could’ve been. I’d look like my brother,” he snickers to himself like he’s just said an inside joke. “Makes me thankful for the demon face!”

I don’t join in on his laughter.

 _I don’t think you look like a demon,_ I want to say, but I don’t. Not out loud, at least, but it’s all I chant in my head.

“Did you like what I painted on yours?”

I have to really think hard to grasp what he’s asking me.

“Oh… It… didn’t really make sense to me. Why would you paint me as a storm? Am I the clouds? Or the rain? Or the whole thing? It frustrated me.”

Jerome gives a satisfied grin. “Good. The longer you think about it the better.”

“You mean you’re not going to explain it to me?”

“Why would I do that? I know you have a brain and I know you can use it.”

I frown at him while he rocks back into a hearty laugh that fills the tent.

“You said the scars feel like a costume you can’t take off,” I say, briefly kicking his shoe to regain his attention. “Would you want to?”

He shakes his head. “No. In a way, it marks my new beginning to life, y’know? But I’m more than just this face. I’m a walking, breathing idea, a philosophy. I want Gotham to remember me for what I stand for, not for my permanent smile.”

Fury boils within my blood at the mere mention of my City’s name.

“You’re too obsessed with Gotham.”

“You people make for excellent victims.”

I want to slap him, but Jerome rises from his seat and suddenly he’s taller than me. Peering down at me, his mouth quirks humorously.

“Struck a nerve, have I?”

“You never stopped,” I say sweetly with a sweet smile.

“Liar,” Jerome grins playfully, shortening the distance between us so that I’m engulfed by his scent. “Because a few minutes ago, you held my hand. Had I known any better, I’d have thought you wanted to kiss it and make it all better for me.”

Appalled, I gawk at him. “I did _not._ ”

“You sure?” he asks, slowly walking his fingers up my arm. “Could’ve sworn there was a certain look in your eyes.”

“Pity.”

Jerome tuts. “A yen, more like.”

I throw him a look filled with disdain. “You, sir, are unbelievably delusional.”

“And you, madam, are positively charming.”

My insides burn further. Why can’t he insult me like a normal person?!

I don't want to move away from him. I wouldn’t dare to. I’m stronger than he thinks. He can’t expect to make me feel uncomfortable whenever he tries to gain the upper hand. I stare him down, my eyes crackling with fire while his are annoyingly calm and mellow.

“Do you find me interesting yet, Anna?” he asks amiably with a liquid smile.

I return the derisive grin. “So, is this what this is all about? You’re trying to make yourself seem interesting to me?”

As if there was hardly any space between us, Jerome bends down until his eyes are leveled with mine. “I never said that.”

“You can say, or not say, whatever you like. I know you’re still hurt over the whole Penguin ordeal. You still want me to write about you.”

He chuckles dryly. I can’t tell whether he really finds anything funny or not and I hardly possess the mental capability to analyse something like that right now. His tip-toeing fingers reach the top of my arm where they now draw lazy circles. If he does that long enough, he could burn a hole through my coat.

“I already told you that I don’t.”

Just when I think he couldn’t possibly pull off anything unpredictable, the tantalizing fingers jump from my shoulder to brush a lock of hair behind my ear. The gesture brings back memories of him in his prison clothes and me in my pajamas. Abruptly, I feel a blush riding up my neck and creeping into my face. His fingers are cold when they graze the side of my hot cheek. Slowly, they skim down the length of my hair and stop to twiddle the tips.

“Fun fact,” he murmurs, looking down at his fingers rather than into my rigid eyes. “Ever since my visit to your apartment, I’ve only ever imagined you with wet hair and paint-stained hands.” His eyes snap to me. “An artist should never have clean hands.”

“Maybe you should lower your expectations,” I say stiffly, confused as to why the hell I’m allowing him this strange intimacy. “I’m not that good of an artist.”

“I don’t believe you. _Not… one…bit..._ ”

 _Oak and hazelnut and warmth..._ His scent is a drug to me. Why am I so drawn to him this way? Why couldn't he smell of the animal shit he described earlier? Would've saved me the constant internal dilemma I keep falling into!

Before I do something stupid like lean into him, I take a step back. His hand pauses in an elevated gesture, fingers partially extended. Reluctantly, his hand drops to his side.

“Am I not getting an answer from you?” he asks. “Do you find me interesting?”

I roll my eyes, but I’m also unable to hide the stubborn smile that grows. “You have a brain, Jerome. I know you can use it.”

There it is again! That bubbling laugh! It’s so organic, so _real_. It's too sweet for my ears, but I'm hypnotized by him, nonetheless. It’s a wonderful sound. I wish he’d always laugh like that.

When his laughter fades, he ends with a long sigh.

“I really do like you," he confesses with a cordial smile. "Very much. _Too_ much."

I see the words spilling from his mouth and floating around the air between us in dripping letters. I don’t think it's healthy for my body temperature to fluctuate from cold to hot so many times within such a short period of time. My skin feels so hot I might as well be sizzling. In fact, if I listen closely, I think I’ll hear the crackling.

“Aren’t you going to return the sentiment?”

I stay quiet. Why must he insist on taking things a step too far?”

“I’m sure you like me a teeny-weeny-tiny bit, Anna. You can tell me. It’ll be our little secret.”

“Careful, Jerome,” I say, fighting the airiness in my tone. “Your ego is soaring.”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

I laugh. He actually made me laugh over something that does not deserve a laugh. I don’t think about it and I don’t stifle it. I get it out of my system, allow it to relieve my body of the building tension around my joints. 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I finally say.

A few seconds pass and he won’t stop looking at me with that ridiculous fond smile. Shuffling awkwardly, I squeeze my brain for an intervention.

“So. Did you ever take a crack at those swings up there whenever you snuck in here?”

Jerome gazes at the hanging ropes and swings above our heads. “Never. I had a fear of heights.”

I gawk at him. “You’re joking.”

“Why? Because I’m unaffected by the sight of blood? Everyone has a weakness.”

“Did you not climb my apartment building and enter through the window in the middle of the night?

Jerome grins wickedly. “I did say ‘had’ a fear. Got over it.”

Oh. How interesting.

“Do you have any other fears?”

Jerome snorts. “Well, _duh_. I’m only flesh and blood, after all!”

“Tell me then,” I challenge. “What else do you fear?”

“Many things.”

Damn. I want to know so badly.

Biting my lip, I make an impulsive decision. “I’ll trade you a fear for a fear.”

A rousing excitement tweaks the corners of his eyes. “Ladies first.”

“Alright…”

While I think, I start to pace. Jerome is at my side, slowly circling the ring with me. His fingers lace behind his back and his eyes are glued to the sandy surface beneath his feet. He looks thoughtful and, oddly enough, patient.

“The ocean,” I finally say. I assume Jerome would turn to address me, but he hardly reacts at first. He digests the small nugget of information and then simply hums.

“Why?”

I shrug. “Anything could be down there. No one knows for certain what lurks in those depths. It could be huge but tame, or small but dangerous. It’s a mystery which people just accept, and I cannot understand why.”

He hums again but otherwise stays quiet.

“Your turn,” I say.

“Dreams.”

He says it without thinking. It’s like he spat the word out, got rid of it.

I blink perplexedly. “As in… You fear going to sleep?”

“That’s not what I said, is it?” he says snidely. “The best nights are the ones where I sleep and don’t dream, but when I do… I relive my worst memories over, and over, and over _again_.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“All the time.”

“What are they usually about?”

“I don’t remember asking you so many follow-up questions.”

I smile wryly to myself. “You don’t make the rules around here.”

“My line.” Jerome chuckles lowly, his shoulder lightly grazing mine before giving me a playful shove as we walk.

“I dream about my mother a lot, usually threatening me with a broken beer bottle. She never looks like herself… She's bigger. _Much_ bigger. I can’t fight her. She doesn’t stop breathing when I choke her. She doesn’t bleed when I stab her. I’d shrink to about the size of a mouse, stripped of all my defenses. Sometimes I wake up before she finds me with her boot. Other times…” he shudders exaggeratedly and shakes the feeling off. “I’ll stop there. I know how sensitive your gut is now. Your turn.”

I still want him to keep going, but I nod to him. He gave me more details than I expected him to.

“I fear turning into my parents when I grow up,”

“You don’t say. How so?” Although I don’t see it, I know he’s wearing a shit-eating grin.

“They’re… they’re so...”

“Boring?”

“Miserable,” I say, and a strange weight is lifted from my chest. “I don’t think they know it; they probably think they’re living a normal retired life, but there’s no excitement there, you know? Everything’s always a routine, everything has order. They’re not that old, they could travel the world if they want to, do exciting things every day, but they instead prefer to stay home and complain about the weather, or the neighbors, or me… I don’t want to grow up to become miserable and not realize it.”

“Is that why you didn’t spend Christmas with them?”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t have to be an accountant like them, y’know.”

“I’m not doing it for them,” I say breezily, ignoring the dubious look I know he’s giving me. “Your turn.”

“Boiling liquids,” he says, snickering as he lifts his burned hand. “Obviously! You can’t imagine the adrenaline I’d felt when you threatened me with your boiling pot of milk, o’Milkmaiden,”

I stop my pacing to fix him with a flat look. “You had a gun that night and yet you were concerned over some hot milk?”

“ _Boiling_ milk.”

I laugh despite my effort not to. “Explains why you held Winnifred hostage.”

Jerome’s face twists with confusion. “I thought her name was Winston.”

“Yes, I don’t know why you came to that conclusion. Why would I name a female cat ‘Winston’?”

“Because she looks like one…”

“Delusional,” I mutter under my breath.

Jerome chuckles quietly, more to himself than anything.

“One more each,” he says. “Tell me a funny one.”

It doesn’t take me long to think.

“I fear Winnifred may not really love me.”

I hear his laugh before he actually laughs at all. I knew that it would be genuine. I knew that it would come from the heart, not the throat. I knew that he’d double over and brace himself against his knees. I knew that his pale skin would acquire a rosy blemish as he neglected to breathe between laughing intervals.

I’m very aware of my wide grin as I watch him. I wanted him to laugh. I wanted to _hear_ him laugh. Jerome laughs a lot. Too much, sometimes. But he does not laugh enough like this, the way he is right now.

“You really don’t disappoint, do you!” He wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater and a few stray giggles escape him. I let him laugh some more, quietly enjoying the musical ring.

When he finally straightens up, his eyes are wet and the laugh lines on his face are heavily accentuated.

“I’m sure your little bundle of joy thinks you’re the bee’s knees, Anna. No reason to doubt that. If I were your Winston, I’d bake you a cake everyday.”

I chuckle involuntarily and it almost doesn’t sound like me.

“It’s _Winnifred_ , and you owe me a fear,” I remind him.

“Would you like a funny one, too?”

Without hesitation, I shake my head. “Surprise me.”

“Always pushing for more, aren’t you?” There’s an impish pull to his mouth before he the purses his lips and casts his eyes down in thought.

Hooking his thumbs through the loops of his jeans, Jerome lazily rocks back against his heals in a careless attitude. When he stalls for more than ten second, I realize that he’s not exactly sure of what to tell me. I don’t rush him. Instead, I pretend to watch the gears churning in his head as he quietly contemplates his thoughts.

When his eyes flicker to me, a wicked smirk paints his mouth.

“Heights.”

Incredulously, I jerk my head back. “You said you got over it.”

“I lied.”

“But… you said you’re a man of your word.”

“Try to be,” he corrects.

I frown, feeling incredibly perplexed. “Wait. You climbed my building-“

“Can’t get over that, huh? Your fears are only as powerful as you allow them to be, Anna. My kid-self could tell you that.”

Staring at him, I try to study him as hard as I can. I take in his relaxed body language, his amused smile, his riveting eyes… God, why can he be so hard to read sometimes?

“How much of all that you’ve said to me so far was a lie?"

“Aw. Have I led you to doubt my integrity?”

“With your reputation, I never should have undoubted you in the first place,” I grumble sourly.

Approaching me slowly, Jerome regards me with a warm smile.

“Don’t be angry. With you, my dear, I have never lied so little before in my life. I can count the lies on one hand.

Unimpressed, I narrow my eyes at him. “Am I supposed to believe you now?”

Jerome shrugs. “If you like.”

“Because I _don’t_ believe you.”

“Alright-y.”

I growl at him. “You piss me off. Are you aware of just how much you piss me off?”

Jerome smirks. “Oh, Anna, it’s what I do best. Haven’t you ever lied to me?”

I don’t want to answer him out of spite, but I know my answer. I’ve always known it, whether he’d asked the question or not.

“No,” I say, my voice calmer than I expect.

Even if he’s trying not to show it, I detect the brief glint of uncertainty in his eyes.

“Why not? I’d have had no way of knowing the truth.”

“I know, Jerome, I’m not stupid,” I snap, but I’m not really angry at _him_. I have only myself to blame. “I know I could’ve lied, but I didn’t want to.”

He takes a step closer. “ _Why?_ ”

I crane my neck back to look at him and frown. “Because I’m not afraid of you, no matter the blood on your hands, no matter the weapon you use. You need me more than I need you. You always have.”

Jerome smiles, but his eyes are glaring. “A tad overconfident, aren’t we?”

“Pissed off, actually”

He chuckles bleakly. “If you’re that sore over my little white lies then I do beg for your forgiveness. Didn’t realize your trust in me ran so deep.”

My vision reddens. “I. Do not. _Trust you._ ”

“Now, now, Anna. Thought you said you never lied.”

Something in me cracks; maybe it’s my sliver of patience, or maybe it’s my thin layer of self-control. I’m not sure, but I know that any string of words would fail me now. I cannot express to him just how much of an audacious ass he is sometimes. He always has a comeback, always a step ahead of me, always ready to show off that stupid, arrogant smile.

I want to hit him. _Hard._

Impulsively, I reel my gloveless hand back to give him a good blow to the arm, but Jerome catches my flying fist effortlessly even between his escalating cackles. His hand is cold around mine; I can feel the frigidness of his fingers as they flex and tighten.

“The least you could do is let me hit you!” I yell over his laughter.

“Violence is never the answer.”

I scoff loudly. “You’re one to talk.”

“I am,” he says solemnly, keeping a tight hold around my struggling hand. “Violence is fun, but it’s only a temporary fix. Even if you knock me out with a metal bat, you’ll still feel pissed. That feeling doesn’t go away.”

I smile at him. “Well give me a bat and let’s find out.”

He tugs on my hand and I stumble to him clumsily. Bringing my hand up to his mouth, his eyes watch me closely as he presses his lips to my naked wrist. His hand might be cold, but his mouth feels much colder. My nerves frantically spasm at the contact. The sarcastic smile on my face drops, and the snarky words on my tongue die off without a trace.

What the absolute fuck is he doing.

“Sorry for lyin’,” he says, turning my hand to press his lips against the hollow of my palm. “Old habits die hard.” He nips a trail up the line of my thumb where he places a soft kiss against the delicate pad. “You _did_ ask me to surprise you though. You should know that, particularly with you, I do try my best to be honest.” He kisses every finger until he reaches my pinkie. I barely feel his lips there; the kiss he leaves is just a brush, a timid touch. “After all, I value your trust very much. Wouldn’t like you to think any less of me… I _have_ been on my best behavior so far, Anna. Believe me,” he says, chin dipping downwards to cast me a serious look. “Am I forgiven?”

How the fuck am I expected to speak when I’ve forgotten how to articulate words?

My mouth parts in a poor attempt to utter a single word, but I just end up gawking at him. My hand is blazing in his, and yet his icy grip does not melt away. My blood curdles where he touches me, my fingers blister where he’d kissed me… and yet… all I know… is that some part of me is capable of craving more than this. Much, _much_ , more.

Subconsciously, I wet my lips, and Jerome’s eyes shift to the swipe of my tongue. An elusive grin stretches his mouth.

“Not forgiven? I can’t live knowing you hold a grudge against me, fair Milkmaiden.”

_God, Anna, say anything already so that you can get away from him!_

“Let go,” I rasp out, very aware of how dry my throat is.

“You’re still upset. I won’t let go till you say: I forgive you, Jerome.”

My teeth hurt as I clench them.

“Yes, okay, fine. Now let go of me.”

Jerome shakes his head. “Say it like you mean it. Word-for-word.”

I glare at him, and Jerome happily embraces my heated gaze. This only makes me angrier

When I make him wait for too long, his jaunty attitude turns into grave annoyance within milliseconds.

“I’ll bite off this little finger if you don’t say it, Anna, and I mean it,” he warns sternly.

My stomach twists as I realize how he’s still holding onto my pinkie, just mere inches away from his taunting mouth.

“You’re bluffing.”

“Hence the _‘mean it’_ , my brainy accountant.”

“Alright, alright,” I hiss, trying to ignore the pretentious curve of his lips. “I forgive you.”

“ _Jerome,_ ” he reminds me tersely.

Biting back an array of curse words, I grin through my pain. “ _Jerome._ ”

He releases me right away, and although I initially planned to back away from him, I find myself standing right where I am. Jerome raises an arched brow at me.

“I expected you to bite me anyway,” I tell him amidst my bewilderment.

“Told you I try to be a man of my word,” he says, head tilting inquisitively. “I expected you to jump away from me.”

 _I did, too,_ I want to say, but I remain quiet instead. Jerome’s mouth quirks at my silence.

“I knew it,” he says smugly. “You _do_ like me a teeny-weeny-tiny bit.”

“ _Oh, please_.”

“At least whisper it in my ear. I won’t tell anyone you said it. I’ll even pretend I never heard it!”

I smirk despite my determination not to.

“But, Jerome, I have never lied to you so far. Why start now?”

Jerome laughs himself into oblivion. As I watch him, I realize that I never really laugh along with him, and it’s not entirely because he annoys me. Saying that I enjoy watching him laugh is an understatement. My eyes glue to him, hardly ever blinking away. I take everything in all at once: the scrunched eyes, the dimpled cheeks, the shaking shoulders, the toppling hair, the eventual wheezing... I hate to admit it, even to myself, but what I enjoy more than his laugh is when _I_ make him laugh. It fills my stomach with raving butterflies, it makes my breath hitch as I suppress an elated sigh, and, worst of all, it makes me smile the way I shouldn’t smile at a psychopathic maniac. There’s nothing I can even do about it either. No matter how much I try to muffle it, the smile only grows bigger and more obtrusive. And it’s all his fault, the jerk.

When Jerome returns from cloud nine, he’s breathless. He takes in a comical inhale and releases it with a long _‘phewwww’_. His smile is dopey when he looks at me.

“Oh, Milkmaiden… you may not always ask the right questions, but you do always say the right things.”

Damn, how big can my smile really get?

“You’re easy to impress.” 

Grinning shrewdly, Jerome moves closer. I don’t feel any radiating heat from him, and when his ice-cube fingers touch mine, goosebumps erupt through my arm.

“On the contrary,” he says quietly. “I’m a very meticulous fellow, and you, little missy, are quickly learning how to pull my strings.”

I replay his words in my head. Did he… did he just admit that _I_ hold some power over _him_? 

Jerome chuckles lowly at me while I rewire my brain. His fingers lazily lace with mine. I hardly notice them at all.

“You’re overthinking.”

I blink dumbly. “You wish.”

Jerome laughs, and my attention is thankfully drawn to the mist that swirls above his head.

“Why are you wearing that ridiculous orange sweater?”

“Because otherwise I’d be indecent, and I don’t need a lesson from you explaining to me why that’s wrong.”

“No, I mean… it’s seven degrees below zero and you’re wearing _that?_ You managed to sneak out of Arkham with a gun the last time I saw you, yet you couldn’t manage an appropriate garment?”

Jerome smirks. “Concerned over my health, Anna?”

I shoot him an irksome look. "No, but I think you should know that you’re going to freeze to death.”

“I’m tougher than you think. I’ve survived worse environments.”

“You’re not invincible to weather, Jerome.”

_You’re only human, after all…_

That’s it. My mind is made up and God dammit, I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

With my hand already encased in his icy grip, I turn on my heals and start pulling him towards the exit.

He doesn’t resist, but his pace is slower than mine and I can tell that he’s slightly skeptical.

“Curiouser, curiouser. Have you decided to take over the tour?”

“Forget the tour. You’re freezing. You’re going to catch pneumonia.”

“And, pray tell, where are you taking me, _Anna-ah_?” There’s a definite mirthful undertone to his voice.

I roll my eyes. “Every time I asked you that question tonight, you never answered me.”

“Oh, I see. So, you’re giving me a taste of my own medicine then, are you?”

“Duh,” I say, gaining a very bubbly, very honest, laugh from him.

He doesn't get to see the smile that swells on my face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm adding an extra chapter to this fic XD And to think this was once a one shot!
> 
> Don't forget to let me know what you think about the plot so far! Jerome was a lot harder to write during this chapter. I don't want to stray away from what the show built him up to be, but I am trying to dig deeper into certain little elements hinted at throughout the seasons. The goal is to discover what's new in a realistic setting, more or less.
> 
> The next chapter shouldn't take that long to post, but it's the one I'm most nervous about posting! Who's to say what happens there :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a lot for reading! Show some love if you liked it!


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